


Fistbump 2 - Unspeakable

by Edward_or_Ford



Series: Fistbump AU [2]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: F/M, Sibling Incest, pinecest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-03 10:05:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 15
Words: 80,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11529972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edward_or_Ford/pseuds/Edward_or_Ford
Summary: Fourteen-year-old Dipper and Mabel return home to California, after a tumultuous conclusion to summer vacation at Gravity Falls





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s note #1: As the title indicates, this story is a sequel to “Fistbump”, my first fanfic. Although I have included enough exposition in this sequel that reading the first story is not strictly necessary, I heavily recommend it. It will give context to how Mabel and Dipper got to where they are at the beginning of this story. Plus, I think it was a pretty good story in its own right. You can find "Fistbump" in my list of Works.
> 
> Author's note #2: I wrote the original Fistbump story and the first ten chapters of this sequel from early 2015-early 2016, prior to the end of the television series. As such, there are some inconsistencies to canon that now cannot be corrected. I will be bringing more of these up in notes to later chapters, but for now:  
> \- I had set the twins' birthday to be the 24th of August instead of the 31st, so that there would be a week of summer vacation after their birthday.
> 
> Author’s note #3: I very much want your feedback, so please post a review or leave a comment. However, I’d like the reader to experience the story without any context of where it is going, and the comments will almost certainly contain spoilers. So here's my request: if you leave a comment on Chapter 1 that deals with your overall impression of the story, please do not refer to specifics. Thanks.
> 
> Author’s note #4: I hate to have to write this, but etiquette to the appropriate story tags on this site demands I address it. This story will get very emotionally intense. Events will occur which will result in characters experiencing powerful feelings of loss, anger, betrayal and (significantly) violation. To clarify: there are NO depictions or suggestion of sexually violent acts anywhere in this story, but the emotional consequences experienced by the characters may be similar to if there were. Govern yourself accordingly.

* * *

“Time to wake up, sleepyhead!”

Dipper groaned slightly, and cracked open his eyes.  He had always had the ability to wake up quickly, but his head was feeling very heavy this morning.  And Mom was being extra bright and bubbly.

_ Wait … Mom? What’s she doing he- … Oh, right _ , Dipper remembered.  He was home.  It was Sunday on Labor Day weekend. He was back in Piedmont, back from Gravity Falls.  Back from summer’s work, to the start of school in two days.  Back from rural outback life to familiar suburbia.  Back …

_ Back to where things would have to return to the way they were, before last week. _

The hint of a smile that had started to form on his face instantly disappeared. He knew why he was so tired. It wasn’t just that it was after midnight when the family had arrived home from the bus station last night, so he’d had a short night’s sleep. His mother didn’t know that he also went without much sleep at all the previous night, as well.

His mother was making small talk with her son. Dipper slowly sat up, feeling like he was immersed in molasses.  Not just his body and brain, his whole insides felt leaden. It wasn’t just lack of sleep: it was much more than that.  He didn’t really hear much of what his mother was saying, something about how he felt to now be fourteen years old. He knew that she was genuinely happy to have her kids back home.  When she appeared satisfied that Dipper was among the living, she winked at him and told him to wish her luck, because she was going across the hall. As she breezed out the door from his bedroom, she called out for Mabel to wake up.

_ Mabel … _

Dipper’s head sagged down, and he closed his eyes briefly. He felt his insides twist.

Then, with great effort, he drew a deep breath, forced himself to stand, and headed for the door.

* * *

Mabel’s extraction from the land of sleep seemed to go shockingly easily, for her.  She was up and into the kitchen barely three minutes behind Dipper, who was sitting at the table with a bowl of cereal. He looked up at his twin sister in mild surprise.

“Good morning, Bro Bro!” she sang out to Dipper, practically skipping into the room, heading for the cupboard for her own bowl. “Ah,  _ real _ breakfast food! Thanks, Mama!” she called out to their mother in the next room, pouring herself a bowl of Froot Loops and spooning on extra sugar. She grabbed the bowl and milk pitcher and carried them over to the table.  “I missed having a proper breakfast when we were at the Shack,” she said cheerfully as she sat across the corner of the table beside Dipper.

Dipper looked at Mabel in silent confusion.  _ How is it she’s so happy? Had she gotten over everything that had happened? Was she able to just forget about it and move on? Just like that? Our lives were turned upside down TWICE over the course of the last week, and she’s just okay with this? _

Mabel wasn’t looking Dipper’s way at that moment, so he dropped his stare back his bowl on the table, his stomach churning around his breakfast cereal. He wasn’t sure how he was going to get through this.

* * *

Mabel, for her part, had thought a lot about how  _ she _ was going to get through this.

When their mother had gone into her room to wake her, Mabel was just as exhausted and despondent as Dipper, but she wasn’t showing it.  After they arrived home from the bus station mere hours earlier, then said goodnight in the hallway to Dipper, she had gone to her bedroom on the edge of tears. Everything hurt. She and Dipper had talked the whole bus ride about how things had to go, or there would be trouble. Mabel had truly believed that she would be able to just go back to the way it was before last week. But then, alone in her room, less than an hour after getting off the bus at the station, she already knew it was going to be too difficult.

So she came up with another plan. She wouldn’t push herself to change back at all. She would just be the best actress in the world. She determined that it would be easier to  _ fake  _ being her old self than to actually commit to  _ being _ her old self. She was the extrovert in the family. She was the one who saw the positive side to everything. She always had. As she finally went to sleep in the early hours, Mabel vowed to make sure that at least she still looked the part. This secret was too important.

The twins were keeping a dangerous secret from their parents. Not just from their parents: this was a secret that  _ no one _ could learn about.

The previous weekend had been the twins’ fourteenth birthday, and to mark the occasion they had arranged to spend the entire day alone in Portland for the best sibling-celebration ever. They celebrated far more than they expected to. The events of the day caused Mabel and Dipper to realize that their feelings for one another were far more intense than familial love: that they both had, in fact, been suppressing the fact that they were  _ in  _ love with each other since the end of the previous summer. Before they had gone to sleep late that night, they were fully committed to one another romantically, and had passionately given their virginities to each other.

On their return to Gravity Falls from Portland for the final week of the summer, they continued to quietly experience the wonders of young love. But unfortunately for them, it had not gone unnoticed. Their great uncle Stan, in whose home (the “Mystery Shack”) they had been staying the past two summers, easily noticed the signs of the change in their relationship, and on Friday night he confronted them about it. He had thought it was just inappropriate sexual experimentation, but he quickly learned that the kids had hopelessly fallen for each other.

There was no way that the two of them were equipped to keep an ongoing boyfriend/girlfriend relationship a secret, it was just too obvious to anyone. And their lives were far more public in California than they were in rural Oregon. When (not if) anyone from school or the neighborhood were to notice them, word of their taboo relationship would spread like wildfire, and they couldn’t calculate how difficult their lives would become.

Their father and mother, in particular though, were the ones whose reactions they feared most to discovering their love.  They weren’t terrible parents by any stretch, in fact they loved and cared for their children just as much as in any good family, and the kids loved them in return.  But Dipper and Mabel knew just how outraged and scandalized they would be by what the twins now felt for each other, and had done with each other.  They were both well-regarded members at a large local fundamentalist church, and their father in particular believed strongly in traditional family values. Incest in the home, ongoing or not, would be completely unacceptable. There was no doubt at all in the minds of their children that there would be  _ very  _ unpleasant consequences if they were found out, including the prospect of being forcibly separated to boarding schools.

And the likelihood of being caught was very high. Unlike at the Shack, where Dipper and Mabel shared a large room in the attic, back at home each had their own room, and they were both directly next door to their parents’ master bedroom. Any attempts to spend time together privately, platonic or not, would be quickly noticed by their parents. Their bedroom doors had no locks on them. The risk of being discovered was too great.

Stan felt terribly for them, but his advice remained the same: this new part of their lives that Dipper and Mabel now shared had to stop.  Unhappily, the twins agreed.  Their one-week romance was finished. They had to try to put their lives back together as they had been, as merely brother and sister.

They tried to convince each other, and themselves, that they could wait for each other. That when they were eighteen, they could run off together. They couldn’t admit to each other how unlikely they thought that was to come to pass.

Grunkle Stan did not prohibit them one last time of intimacy on Friday night. They had made love slowly and gently, tearfully treasuring their time together, knowing that what they were sharing was precious and rare, even if it was forbidden.

* * *

Dipper was thinking back to that moment barely more than twenty-four hours before, the most wonderful yet tragic event in his young life, as he ate his cereal. This was so hard, Mabel was sitting  _ right there _ , not three feet away! He wanted to look at her, take her in his arms, kiss her lips, tear her clothes off ...

"Earth to Dipper?" his mother asked, jolting him from his thoughts.

“Huh?” Dipper responded dumbly.

Her mother walked over to the table. "I just asked you if you’re all right. I don't believe you've said a word all morning!"

"Yeah! … Yeah, Mom, I'm ... fine," Dipper replied quietly, not quite looking up. "Guess I'm just still tired."

His mother waited a couple of beats, looking to Mabel before jokingly admonishing her son. “Oh, poor sweepy widdle boy!” she teased. “Does Mommy need to tuck you back into his widdle bed?”

“Mo-om! You’re as bad as Mabel!” Dipper groaned. “Only not as creative,” he added.

“Actually I  _ was _ waiting on you there, Pumpkin,” their mother said to Mabel, smiling. “I was sure you’d be the one to jab a needle at your  _ po-wah widdle brudder _ .” Dipper sighed, closing his eyes in resignation. Their mother’s smile widened. “You not quite up to speed this morning either?”

“I’m fine!” Mabel exclaimed. “Just feeling sorry for the old lump! Bap!” Mabel leaned across the table and cuffed Dipper on the arm. He yelped and rubbed his bicep. He didn’t really feel like getting ganged up on by these two, and continued to mope.

Mabel waited for Dipper to look up, but she had to prompt him. “Hey, Dipper?” Mabel prodded.

Glumly, Dipper looked up to see the fist that Mabel had used to punch him was still there, held directly in front of him across the corner of the table. He glanced up to see Mabel’s face, fondly smiling at him.

A small smile of his own broke, and he brought his sore arm up and tapped his own fist to Mabel’s.

“Ah, there’s the fistbump!” their mother said. “I’ve missed that. It’s so cute! Now finish up and get ready, shower and get dressed. Service starts in forty-five minutes, we have to leave in thirty!” she said as she whisked down the hall to her bedroom.

After she left, Dipper and Mabel continued to smile at each other. They had been bumping fists for years as a way of communicating solidarity and teamwork between them. Everyone knew the hand signal, it was no secret. But as of the day before, the gesture now had a new secret meaning known only to them. On the bus from Oregon, they had agreed to adopt the fistbump as their silent “I love you” signal, so they could tell each other how they still felt about the other without raising suspicion.  

Dipper was happy to see how well it worked for him. One little tap, and he felt so much better! The smile touched his eyes. He loved Mabel so much!

Mabel smiled wider at the way Dipper had perked up.  She hated seeing his sad puppy-dog face, she couldn’t stand not letting him know how she was really feeling about him.

Both of them were thinking the same thing: maybe, just maybe, this  _ won’t  _ be so hard. Perhaps they could bear to tough this out. Together, they could handle these obstacles! Their love was strong enough, they just  _ knew _ it! Nothing could stop them from …

“What’s up with you two?” came a voice from the entrance to the kitchen.

Dipper and Mabel looked up, startled. Their father stood there, gripping a tie in his hand, and finishing buttoning up his shirt. They hadn’t been aware that he had come out from the master bedroom, and was apparently watching them gaze at one another. “What?” the twins said in unison, eyes wide.

“Whaaat?!?” their father mocked back at them with an easy smile. “I walk in here to say ‘good morning,’ and I see the two of you just staring googly eyes at each other?” Dipper felt himself pale, but tried not to change his expression. “You’re probably plotting some new shenanigan or other, as usual, but you looked so pleased with yourselves I thought you might start kissing!” Mabel uttered a nervous laugh, and made a quick “Pfft!” noise, while Dipper belatedly added a meek “Eww!” Their father snorted and chuckled. “I know you two are best friends on top of being twins, but you looked  _ ridiculous _ ! Now, hurry up!” His demeanor turned more serious. “Your mother already told you. Both of you need to get cleaned up and we need to be out of here in a half hour. One of you, get going now!”

“I’ll go!” volunteered Dipper quickly. He leaped to his feet, eager to remove himself from Mabel’s presence. He mentally kicked himself. Their first day back, less than five minutes, and they'd already made a small mistake! He  _ had _ to be more careful! He _ had _ to tone down his feelings!  _ It’s over, Dipper! _ he berated himself.  _ You can’t let yourself get caught up again! Yes, you’re in love with your sister! No, you can’t  _ do _ anything about it! Get over it!!  _

Mabel watched Dipper hurry down the hall, then finished off her cereal and collected their dishes from the table. She regretted almost getting caught. But she didn’t regret letting Dipper know that she was just acting the part of the "old" version of Mabel, that she was still very much in love with him.  _ This is going to be super-duper hard!  _ she thought.  _ But what we have is worth it! I wish like heck we could find some private time, so I can drop this dumb act for awhile.  _ She put her game face back on again, convincing herself to be prepared to be in this role for a long, long time.

* * *

The Pines family had been regular church-goers for the twins’ entire lives. It was part of their experience of growing up, so none of it was uncomfortable for them. Unlike for their parents, though, the church was not an integral part of either of the twins’ belief systems.

Dipper had no issue at all with the concept of belief in God. Indeed he firmly believed that there were good and evil forces in the world that were unexplainable by science. The problem with him was that he didn’t like blind faith: he needed to see evidence of the supernatural. And he’d seen  _ plenty _ of that the previous summer. Unfortunately for his church, none of what Dipper had seen could be corroborated anywhere in the Bible. The mysterious journals had been  _ his _ bibles. Still, he had politely continued attendance at church, knowing that staying home would not be well received by his parents, but also truly unwilling to let go of all the lessons he had been taught since Sunday school.

Mabel really enjoyed the music and singing at church, and she had a lot of friends there. She agreed with pretty much all of Christianity’s tenets of right and wrong, with the basic message of love and peace, of mercy and compassion. But she just didn’t buy into the whole idea that a God that could be such a buttface in the Old Testament could be so darn forgiving in the New Testament. Maybe having a kid changed His outlook on life? Regardless of all that, she now was  _ really _ uncomfortable with knowing what she had read about in the 18th chapter of the book of Leviticus, given what Dipper and Mabel were to each other now. She had an inane thought that she should tear that chapter out of every Bible in the building, just in case anyone around church found out about them.

Of course, neither of them were concentrating on the service that day. During the sermon, they stared straight ahead to the pastor, by outward appearances paying rapt attention to the message extolling the importance of evangelism in today’s society. Mabel’s subtle shift in her seat beside her brother, so that their shoulders were touching slightly, was sending Dipper’s thoughts elsewhere. And as those thoughts continued, his body also started sending his blood elsewhere. He had to spend the balance of the service with his hands clasped together firmly, low in his lap, pushing down.

Mabel glanced down at the state of his posture, then directed her eyes back toward the podium. She allowed a small smile to cross her face.

Dipper sat still in aroused frustration.  _ Dammit Mabel, how do you do this to me? _

After the service was over, their folks visited a number of tables with sign-up sheets, while the twins and other kids hung out in the gymnasium.  Soon their mother called for them to go, and they headed out to the car.

“So those tables were for signing up for autumn small group studies,” their father told them. “Your mother and I were looking at a group that will be reading through the Book of Ephesians, and we want to join them. Now that you’re starting high school, we figure you’ll be able to do your homework without one of us needing to be around every night.” They had arrived at the car and were getting in. “Starting this week, you two will be on your own on Wednesday evenings after dinner. Sound good?”

“Sounds  _ great _ , Daddy!” Mabel enthused from her seat behind their father. Making sure their parents were looking to get their seatbelts on, she turned and looked at Dipper pointedly, grinning widely and waggling her eyebrows.

“Yeah, Dad, sounds great,” Dipper chimed in, looking back at Mabel with an expression that was mix of excitement and trepidation.

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

Tuesday came, and with it came Dipper and Mabel’s first day at Piedmont High School. They were due to start Grade 9.

Mabel was looking forward to seeing her old friends from middle school again, and hopefully making new friends. They had so much to catch up on, as she had not seen anybody since leaving for Gravity Falls after their last class in the spring.

She also hoped that seeing friends again would help take her mind off her new life at home.  _ Boy, is it difficult to practise method acting all the time!  _ she thought. Every moment that her parents could see her, she was “on”: the hammy, carefree Mabel that they had known and loved for fourteen years. She found that she was even denying herself the ability to turn it off when she was alone, it was too hard to switch back when necessary.  _ Maybe away from Mama and Daddy, I can get a bit of a rest. _

Dipper was looking forward to classes beginning again, but not to having to enter on the lowest rung of the social ladder. He was still a bit short for his age, and thought he was scrawny even for his height. Plus he was pretty much a huge nerd. He knew that high school was where everyone got sorted into cliques, and he hoped that the jock set at this school would go easy on the geeks.

In the high school jungle, having a girlfriend can be a great defense against the alpha gorillas. Just his luck, he had the best girl he could ever hope for, and couldn’t even show her off at school, and would never be able to.

The high school was right beside the middle school, still walking distance from the Pines family home, so the twins walked together, carrying their backpacks. As they walked down the upscale neighborhood streets toward school, they had their first opportunity to privately talk since their arrival off the bus, days before.

“I love you, Dipper,” Mabel said quietly.

Dipper looked around for anyone in earshot. “I love you, too,” he replied quickly while looking down, then added, “I miss you,” glancing up at her face.

“Ditto,” she said with a small smile. They walked without speaking a bit further.

Dipper looked over, concerned about Mabel’s uncharacteristic silence. She had seemed to be handling things so well the last couple of days, appearing so normal (well, “normal” for Mabel, anyway) around everyone, but now he wasn’t so sure. “You okay?” he asked sincerely.

“I guess,” Mabel sighed. “I just have to get used to this. It’s hard being ‘Mabel’ all the time! Now’s the first chance I’ve had to be  _ me _ since we got home.”

_ That’s a weird thing to say _ , Dipper thought. “What are you talking about?” he asked with a smile. “You  _ are _ Mabel!”

“I’m talking about the  _ character _ I’m playing at home. You know, ‘Mabel!’” she emphasized with air quotes. “The silly goofball who’s  _ not _ in love with her brother?”

Dipper considered that without speaking for few steps. Finally, he said quietly, “I hope ‘Mabel’ isn’t just a character anymore.” He paused again, looking at her shyly. “I happen to love the silly goofball!”

Mabel felt herself blush at his sappy comment, and immediately decided she needed to return the favor. “Yeah, but does she do  _ this _ for you?” she asked with quiet innuendo, as she crossed over in front of him to walk on the other side of her brother, quickly grabbing his crotch along the way. Dipper jumped in surprise and alarm.

“Mabel!” he scolded her hoarsely, then looked up and down the street. “You can’t  _ do _ that! It’s too risky! What if somebody sees?”

She pouted for a second, then grudgingly agreed. “Sorry. Couldn’t resist. I won’t do it again.” She looked over to him again shrewdly. “Not until tomorrow night, that is!” she purred.

A happy tingle ran up Dipper’s spine on hearing Mabel’s promise to him. On first learning of their parents’ plans to attend a Bible study on Wednesday evenings, he wondered if it was really the best idea to sneak in “quality time” together so quickly after they agreed they needed to stay apart. Mabel was obviously in favor of it. The love he felt for her had a way of starting to change his mind. Hormones took care of changing the  _ rest _ of his mind. Mabel smirked at the growing redness in Dipper’s cheeks.

“There  _ is _ a …  _ tiny _ problem with tomorrow night, though,” Mabel continued, quietly and more seriously. “You need to get some …” she cleared her throat, “… condoms,” she mumbled.

The color of Dipper’s cheeks turned from red to a shade that was almost ashen in seconds. He remembered Mabel telling him the night they first made love that she had just had her period three days before. Quick math and recalling what he'd learned on the Internet about menstrual cycles proved that Mabel was right: she would be two weeks into her cycle tomorrow, the worst possible time for a girl to be unduly exposed to her brother’s sperm.

He stopped in his tracks on the sidewalk and gaped at his sister. “I’ve never bought condoms before!” he whispered urgently.

“Well,  _ duh! _ ” Mabel jabbed back affectionately. "Not the biggest surprise there, loverboy!” 

Dipper wasn’t in the mood for joking around. He shushed her to quiet down, then continued in a low voice. “I mean, I don’t ...  _ know _ how to get them! I’m only a kid, I can’t just walk into a drugstore and buy them, can I?”

“Uhh … yeah!” Mabel retorted in her own hushed tone. “You remember me telling you about Jordan’s sister, Kennedy? She’s only a year older than us, and she’s been buying her own condoms since middle school!”

“You also said everyone  _ knows _ Kennedy’s a slut,” Dipper fired back, trying to keep his voice down, “and you were right! Even  _ I  _ knew she’s a slut!”

Mabel poked her finger to Dipper’s chest, and growled sexily under her breath. “Well, if you want tomorrow night to happen, you’re going to have to be  _ my _ slut, dear brother!” She then gave him a playful shove with her palm.

Dipper recovered his balance and hovered near Mabel again. “Oh, c’mon! There’s no pharmacy anywhere near the school. Where can I go to where no one knows …”

A voice called out from behind them, accompanied by running footsteps. A girl, who Dipper recognized as Mabel’s friend Sandra, was sprinting towards them. “Maaa-belllll!” she was shrieking. Mabel turned to the approaching teenager, face lighting up. “Amper-Sandraaaaaaaa!” she screeched back, and ran to meet her friend.

Dipper held his palm to his forehead through his ball cap as the two friends reacquainted themselves.  _ I’m going to have to figure this out on my own, aren’t I? _

Mabel and Sandra quickly walked past Dipper and started to continue on their way to school, leaving Dipper standing there. Mabel turned as she walked. “C’mon, Bro Bro!” she called. “You’re gonna be late if you just stand there, Dippiter! You’re going to get those  _ other things  _ after school this afternoon, right?”

Dipper started walking after the girls. Ahead he could hear Sandra ask “What other things?” and Mabel’s reply of “I don’t know, just some nerd stuff he wants to get.” He shook his head, marveling at his sister’s acting ability. His lover was temporarily gone, and air-quotes-Mabel was back.

* * *

Opening day at Piedmont High started off uneventfully for the freshmen Grade 9 students. Everyone found their class schedule. The twins noted that they had two classes together that first semester.

At lunch, Dipper met up with Ezra and Anthony, his two closest buddies from Grade 8, and got caught up on the latest gaming console titles and trading card games that their little crowd was into. Dipper’s friends also pressed him on the happenings in Oregon. They had been among the few who had taken seriously any of the stories of what had happened in Gravity Falls the previous summer, and both were heavily disappointed that Dipper had no new tales to tell following a second summer there.

Mostly, though, Dipper was trying to figure out where he was going to go after school to pick up his “supplies” for tomorrow night. He was also trying to figure out how to keep from getting hard-ons whenever he would think of the reasons for those supplies. It was almost impossible for him to not keep glancing to the table where Mabel and her friends sat halfway across the large room.

Mabel and Sandra found their other friends Jordan and Aisha, and a new friend Juanita. They were a decidedly multicultural group within the predominantly anglo school. Together they gleefully updated their group on their summer’s activities. They glanced around at the boys that passed by in the cafeteria, with many comments of approval on how hot the guys in the upper grades were. Mabel joined in this discussion, as she would have the previous year. She wondered how many of her friends were like her, putting on an act for the sake of the others, silently hiding their true lives and emotions.

Aisha was the most connected of the group to the older girls in the school, and she pointed out many of them and gave her friends a quick bio. Angelina was the likely head cheerleader and popular snob, don’t get on her bad side. Riley was into drugs and booze, but still kind of cool to talk to. Margaret was the driven, proper student, most likely to be valedictorian, doesn’t have a lot of time for anyone. Aisha knew almost everybody.

As lunch period came to a close, Mabel glanced across to where she had seen Dipper sit with his old friends. The twins locked eyes momentarily, and both of them smiled unconsciously. Juanita noticed the connection, and asked, “So Mabel, who’s that boy over there?”

Mabel had been thinking decidedly un-brotherly thoughts about Dipper at that moment, and she almost flushed. Sandra pounced on Juanita’s question. “Ooh, that’s her dork twin brother! Mabel doesn’t like to admit it, but she and Dipper are BFFs! It’s so sweet!” Sandra laughed as she dodged the friendly poke she knew was coming. She kept up her teasing of Mabel. “You seemed to hang around with him all the time last year, and you spent all summer up north with him again! Aren’t you sick of him yet?”

She glanced back to Dipper’s table, but he and his friends were walking away from their table. Outwardly indifferent, but thinking about Wednesday evening, she decided to answer truthfully. “Nope! He’s my brother, my best friend, and I love him!” she announced to her friends, eliciting a chorus of “Awww”s for her innocent-sounding proclamation.

* * *

_ Breathe slow, Dipper _ , he told himself again.  _ You can do this! Man up! _

Dipper was standing around the corner of the “family planning” aisle in the big CVS pharmacy down by I-580. He’d called his Mom at home, telling her he wanted to go the library after school, took the bus down Grand Avenue, and walked the rest of the way. It was not the regular drug store preferred by his parents.

He had surveyed the aisle sufficiently, walking down twice without stopping. The first time he located the shelf with the condoms, deciding on Trojans because they were the brand he recognized. The second time he tried to analyze the sizes and styles, and had no idea how to compare them, trying to read the labels while walking past them. He finally decided he’d just take the first box of Trojans he could lay his hands on.

Waiting until another shopper walked past him, Dipper took a deep breath and turned the corner. Had anyone cared to be watching, Dipper’s attempt at nonchalance would not have won any acting awards, but he managed to grab a box while knocking only three other boxes onto the floor. Securing a bag of potato chips to provide cover for the contents of his hand, he made his way to checkout.

There was only one register open, with a short line. This would be the hardest part: putting that box on the conveyor belt for the cashier and anyone behind him in line to see. He steeled himself and took his place.

It was about to be his turn, the customer in front of him was just unzipping her purse. The chips were already on the platform, the box ready to be placed, when Dipper chanced to look up at the entrance to the store. Walking through the automatic door was his youth pastor at church.  _ Uhh, seriously!? Now? _ he thought desperately to himself.

Dipper lost all of his nerve. He left the chips on the belt, crammed the condoms into a box of chocolate bars beside the register, and swiftly made for the exit door before the pastor was able to spot him. He walked five minutes to the library, signed out the first Robert Hienlien novel he saw, and quickly boarded a bus back to Piedmont. He’d have to get this task done the following afternoon, before his parents left for their discussion group that evening.

* * *

That plan didn’t work out for Dipper. On Wednesday morning, the twins’ mother told them both to come straight home after school. She had come up with some new rules and responsibilities for the household for the new school year with the kids, and wanted to go over them. Since he had already signalled to Mabel that he had failed the previous day, Mabel was a touch irritated, but had no opportunity to say anything to Dipper.  Sandra was waiting in front of the Pines’ house to walk with them to school.

Mabel, Dipper, Anthony, and Sandra walked home from school together, as they often had in years past. Anthony and Sandra had little in common, other than the twins as their friends, so when they walked it was generally the boys and girls having separate conversations. When Anthony turned off to his street, he asked Dipper if he wanted to come by after supper to play a few rounds of MtG with him and his brother.

“Thanks, but I think I’m supposed to stick around the house tonight,” Dipper replied, making sure that Mabel would overhear the comment.

Mabel heard. “You sure about that, Dipper?” she cut in evenly. “I don’t think you  _ have _ to stay home.”

Dipper turned to look at his sister. There was no playfulness, no smile, only a neutral look. Anthony and Sandra thought it was nothing, just a girl correcting her brother on a fact of little importance. But Dipper now knew she was more than a bit pissed at him.

Looking directly at Mabel, Dipper responded, “Maybe I don’t  _ have _ to stay home, but I  _ want _ to.”

“Suit yourself,” Mabel replied, still poker-faced, then turned and continued with Sandra towards their home.

Dipper tried to appear normal as Anthony gave him a weird look. They said they’d see each other later, and Dipper walked off behind the girls. He hoped that he’d be able to patch it up with Mabel after their parents left for the evening.

For her part, Mabel couldn't handle dealing with Dipper anymore at that moment. She'd been holding off masturbating the last few days since learning of their upcoming time alone. Now her bottled up arousal and frustration were combining to make her angry with her brother. She knew better than to push things, as she was likely to say something that Sandra or her parents might overhear. 

* * *

The rest of the afternoon dragged on tensely, but their mother didn’t appear to notice. Their father arrived home from work and the family ate normally. The parents asked if the kids could please clean up the dinner dishes for them, as they had to leave for their study group.

As soon as the car was out of the driveway and on the street, Mabel glared at Dipper.

“What was so hard that you couldn’t do just this one thing? Just buy a lousy box of condoms at a drugstore!” she grumbled.

Dipper was apologetic. “I’m sorry! Pastor Jim walked in as I was in line. I panicked!”

“So couldn't you have gone back again a few minutes later? Or just gone to another pharmacy?” Mabel sat on the living room sofa in a huff. “I just don’t get it! I’ve seen you fight zombies, a shapeshifter … you leaped off a cliff to rescue me from a giant robot! Why couldn’t you do this?”

“I don’t know!” Dipper groaned, rubbing his head. “Those were when we were in danger … but this was dangerous too, Mabel! Exactly what am I going to say to people who know me if they see  _ me _ , of all kids, with a box of  _ condoms _ ?”

A small smirk crossed Mabel’s face. “You could tell them you met someone new at school … someone who likes you and you think may be special. And you want to be ready so you both can be safe!"

Dipper stopped and looked at Mabel. “You think anyone would really believe that?” he asked seriously.

“Yeah, they would!” The smirk grew to an evil grin. “Especially if you tell them his name!”

“Whose name would I … wait,  _ what _ ?” Dipper protested.

Mabel put on an innocent face, and said nothing.

Dipper sighed, seeing Mabel was toying with him. “Look, this skulking around just really freaks me out. I’m so scared of doing something that could cause us to get caught. I would just … Mabel, you  _ know _ what Dad and Mom could do if they find out! I’d rather face anything that Gravity Falls  _ ever _ dished out at us … than risk facing life without you,” he finished softly.

The irritation inside Mabel melted away with those words from her brother. Whatever his little failings, she saw that Dipper cared deeply about her and about their ability to remain together. It was hard to stay mad at him, it always was! She whined quietly and quickly got to her feet, stepping over to him and opening her arms. They held each other tightly, and Dipper whispered he was sorry again.

“I know you are,” she told him, “and I know how important this secret is. Maybe I shouldn’t push it, but it’s so  _ hard _ ! I love you so much, you big sack of mush!”

Dipper smiled and hugged tighter. “I love you, too, you silly … bundle of … ugh, whatever!” He pulled back, and he tenderly kissed his sister, their first kiss since they had arrived home. It was brief, but full of emotion. Dipper was aware they were standing in the middle of the living room, in full view of the street through the large window. “Think we should probably go somewhere without an audience?” he said, nodding at the street.

“Ack, yes!” Mabel replied sharply. She grabbed his hand and they dashed back to the bedrooms, choosing Dipper’s room because the door to his room was about a foot closer to the living room than Mabel’s.

When they were barely over the threshold, their lips came together again, then their whole bodies. As they necked, they clumsily shuffled to Dipper’s bed, where they flopped down together, laughing into each other’s mouths. Their urgency sated for the moment, they gave each other their favorite full-body, full squeeze hug, as they lay cheek-to-cheek in each other’s arms. (Mabel even had a name for it: the "not-so-awkward-sibling-hug". Dipper had yet to agree to the name.) Mabel fluttered as she felt Dipper’s erection pressing into her crotch through his pants.

“So I guess that was our first fight? As a couple?” Dipper asked, as they slightly relaxed their hold on one another.

“I guess so,” Mabel replied with a grin, rubbing her nose together with her brother’s. Then her expression turned faux-serious. “Too bad we don’t have any  _ condoms _ , ’cause I hear make-up sex is the  _ best! _ ”

A sheepish smile crossed Dipper’s face. “Yeah, yeah! Sorry!” Mabel kissed him deeply to show there were no hard feelings, she just enjoyed giving him digs. Her hands roamed freely over his body, as she missed the feel of his body on hers. She wondered how she would ever get used to  _ not _ being able to feel her brother next to her. 

But for now, she would take advantage of how close they  _ could _ be to one another. Propping herself up quickly, Mabel took off her sweater and shirt, prompting Dipper to do the same with his own t-shirt. Dipper loved Mabel’s breasts and the reactions he could get out of her from them, and he gazed at her chest hungrily. Her mounds were small and firm, not requiring a bra when Mabel wore her trademark sweaters. Dipper knew from experience that her nipples were very sensitive, and she loved it when he gently used his teeth on them. He gave them a soft squeeze, and pinched her nipples lightly, drawing a wonderful-sounding gasp from Mabel. Then they lay back down again and resumed their kissing, satisfied to resume their foreplay with delicious skin-to-skin contact.

Dipper’s hands moved over Mabel’s torso with an expertise that belied his lack of experience. Though they had fewer than a dozen sexual encounters up to that point, he had paid close attention to Mabel’s reactions and what triggered them. He used his palms and fingertips in different combinations, light touches and firm strokes, in different places. Combined with the slow grinding of their clothed hips together, he not-so-slowly worked her arousal up.

Mabel knew it was a little more difficult for her to return the favor. Dipper was still intensely ticklish, and she had learned last week that it kind of interrupts things if your lover suddenly convulses and shrinks into a fetal position as you are caressing him. The palms of her hands were fine, but that left her feeling that Dipper was being underserved. Mabel decided he needed some help further down, so she slipped her free hand down between them and started massaging on the hard protrusion in his pants.

A groan arose from Dipper as Mabel started rubbing up and down, squeezing his penis through his clothes. For several heartbeats, he increased the pace of the movement of his hands on her body. Then he froze, as he felt a rapid tightening in his groin. He broke the kiss as fast as he could. “Mabel, stop!” he cried desperately, but it was too late.

Mabel stopped cold in momentary confusion as Dipper tensed, and moaned “Noooooo!” through his teeth. Then Mabel felt his penis pulsing in her hand through the fabric, and she knew what had happened.

Mabel had stumbled on something that Dipper had been trying to hide from her. He had a bad case of premature ejaculation, something not exactly rare for an over-stimulated boy just turned fourteen. It had happened their first night together, and since then Dipper had been secretly masturbating prior to their lovemaking. He’d not raised any suspicions from Mabel because with his near constant state of arousal, it had never taken him longer than a minute or two in private before he was done. But on this evening, he was so distressed over Mabel’s anger that the task had never occurred to him. 

After the embarrassing deed was complete, he opened his eyes, but didn’t want to look at his sister, and gingerly started to get up. Mabel held him firm, and pulled his face to hers. Her expression showed amusement more than anything, but that didn’t make Dipper feel any better. She opted to replace humor with compassion. She pulled him close and whispered to him that it was all right. Shamefully, he explained what was wrong, and what he had been doing.

“I wish I didn’t have to … get off like that first,” as he continued his confession, “but it makes things so much better, Mabel! I’m able to keep going so much longer with you after I’ve … taken care of myself first.”

“Dipper, you don’t have to do that alone! I’d love to … you know, help you with that!” she assured him, and she plainly meant it.

Dipper did feel a bit better to know Mabel wasn’t put off by the revelation. Still, he screwed up his face as he awkwardly started to get up off the bed. “Be careful what you wish for, Mabel,” he grimaced. “This is  _ really _ gross! I have to go to the bathroom.” He walked bow-legged into the hallway.

“I  _ have _ seen that stuff before, you know!” she called, following him out of the bedroom. “You’ve put quite a bit inside me, if I recall correctly!” she added, laughing.

“You’ve been getting round two,” Dipper replied quietly as he carefully pulled his pants and underwear down in front of the sink, then he grabbed a washcloth from a shelf and wet it. “Do you have to watch this?” he complained, exhaling loudly at Mabel’s wide grin and enthusiastic nod. Resigned, he reluctantly continued, “Trust me, I know how different it is. There’s a lot …” he gestured to the mess, “...  _ more  _ … here than I’ve been giving you. I have a lot less stuff the second time, and takes me a lot longer to get there, but it feels  _ way  _ more intense when it happens.” He made a face as he started wiping himself clean.

“Oh, so you’ve been giving me substandard product?” Mabel joked. Dipper groaned at her as he continued to wipe up semen. She beheld her brother, spunk-filled underwear and pants at his ankles, knees spread, pelvis extended, bent over, and wiping his sticky crotch. She crossed her arms over her bare chest and leaned against the doorframe. “What a  _ beautiful  _ vision to have burned into my brain!” she smirked at him. “Where’s that memory eraser gun gone to?”

Dipper continued in silence, not enjoying Mabel’s barbs. He finished drying himself off, then completed the job of undressing himself, trying to prevent the semen in his clothes from getting all over everything. Now naked, he stood in front of the sink washing out his underwear, thoroughly deflated both emotionally and sexually.

Mabel’s smirk softened to an affectionate smile. Dipper was being all sucky again! She crept up behind her brother and wrapped her arms around his waist from behind, resting her chin on his left shoulder. Dipper unconsciously relaxed, closing his eyes and leaning his head back over to hers. She smiled at their reflection in the mirror. For all the differences in their personalities, she loved how alike they were as well. Like how they knew each other enough to not only get under each others’ skins, but also want to press their skins together.

Dipper let go of his frustration with Mabel’s rapid back-and-forth swings between gentle empathy and making jokes: it was just part of what made her Mabel, the girl he was in love with. He opened his eyes and looked back at his and his sister’s image in the reflection in front of him. They were both still about the same height, so their heads were nestled together perfectly.

They had never seen themselves together like this, looking at faces that they had seen smiling back from countless photos, but never before in such an intimate embrace. Yes, there was an obvious family resemblance, no one would ever think they  _ weren’t _ brother and sister to see them. The same round shape of their faces, their large and expressive dark eyes, small noses, and thick brown hair: they were cut from the same cloth. Dipper wondered if any photos of themselves from now on would capture the change that had come to them. Mabel wondered if a couple could look any more  _ adorable  _ together, and she reached up around to gently poke her finger in Dipper’s right cheek. Dipper guided his left hand to Mabel’s left cheek to return the gesture, Mabel giggling as he narrowly missed poking her in the eye.

Mabel pulled Dipper into herself firmly and pressed her breasts harder into his back. She guided her hand back to his torso, moving it slowly over his nearly-hairless chest and stomach. Dipper tensed and started shaking with suppressed, uncomfortable laughter, allowing Mabel to teasingly walk the fine line between tickling and caressing.  With her other hand, she had unzipped her skirt, and was deftly dropping the remainder of her clothing to the floor. After kicking her clothes away, she then turned him around and they easily slipped their arms around each other. 

Suddenly, Mabel perked up. "Well,  _ that _ little adventure in sexual self-control is done!” Mabel declared. She transitioned to a truly terrible British accent, and proclaimed, “After conducting thyself with the  _ g-drdrdrd-randest _ dignity, I shall knight thee! You shall be named ... Sir Dipshit of Came-a-lot!” Mabel grinned widely at her dorkus of a brother.

Dipper shook his head in wonder, trying to determine if he should be amused, or try to feel offended. The look on his sister’s face tipped the scale, and his chest was shaking in stifled laughter as Mabel leaned in to press her tongue into his mouth.

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

After they fumbled their way back to Dipper’s bedroom between clumsy kisses and groping, Mabel pushed Dipper down to sit on the edge of his bed, then she made herself comfortable sideways on his lap. They were necking and fondling heavily when Mabel broke the kiss suddenly.

“Seriously, Dip!” she panted. “We’ve  _ got  _ to figure out what in Sweet Sally we’re going to do here ... because, you  _ can’t _ end up inside me tonight!”

Dipper idly massaged one of Mabel’s breasts. “I know,” he replied. “I had a sixteen-point plan on how the condom rollout was going to go, but I never had any opportunity to plan for  _ this _ ,” he said with a straight face. Mabel regarded Dipper, trying to decide if he was attempting to be funny or not. She decided that it was a hugely dorky comment either way, so it didn’t really matter.  

The truth was that although the twins had tried a few positions for performing intercourse while in Oregon, they actually had very little experience with other means of pleasing one another, beyond simply fingering each other. They were too young to have developed a liking for kinkier ways of sex. Using toys or other objects were out. They didn’t even know that anal sex was “a thing”, and both would have immediately been grossed out by the idea in any case.

They decided that taking turns with oral sex was their only option. Dipper had tried pleasuring Mabel orally a couple of times, and while she had more than enjoyed it enough, he had found that she had tendencies that could make it somewhat painful work for him. Mabel’s experience with fellatio was limited to two attempts, the last episode substantially less successful than the brief first time. Still, they were both game to try it again that evening.

Dipper slid Mabel off his lap and onto the bed. He gently guided her down onto her back, lightly kissing her neck along the way. He traced his fingers all over her body, paying close attention to those spots that he knew were Mabel’s joy buzzers. 

Then he climbed over her, straddling her thighs as he continued his light massage. Mabel hummed happily while busying her hands on Dipper's chest, hips, and legs. 

Slowly, Dipper lowered his head to Mabel’s chest. With agonizing deliberation, he ran his tongue up her breastbone between her small mounds, up to her throat. Then he swiftly latched onto the sensitive spot of her neck below her left ear with his mouth, while his fingers deftly found her nipples and lightly pinched them. The combined actions produced a sharp breath from Mabel, then a long moan as she reached for Dipper’s penis. 

He quickly pushed his stomach down, blocking her access. He raised his face from her neck to look directly into her eyes. “Nuh uh!” Dipper lovingly said, their noses and foreheads resting together. “I’ll get my turn later. This is for you!” Then he mashed his lips onto hers as he gave her nipples a harder pinch and twist. Mabel squealed in pleasure and surprise into his mouth. 

Emboldened, Dipper decided that he would get his sister off in a different way than he had tried before. He wanted to try bringing her to her climax as quickly as possible, then slowly work her way back to more after that. He wasted no more time. Breaking the kiss suddenly, he scrambled down her body, tracing his tongue to both of her breasts and her navel along the way. In seconds, his face had arrived at Mabel's shaved vulva. He planted kisses and small licks to the top of the slit, as his knees released their grip on her thighs and he eased her legs apart until she was spread wide open for him. Then without an instant's further hesitation, Dipper sucked her clitoris into his mouth, working it over firmly with the flat of his tongue, while sliding his left middle finger into and out of her vagina. 

Seconds earlier, Mabel had been wondering why Dipper was in such a hurry. Now she didn't care, she just craned her neck back and closed her eyes. Her breathing quickened, and she produced a series of moans that was rapidly escalating in volume. 

Dipper loved that they didn't have to be quiet. Hearing Mabel's sounds of arousal allowed him to know right away that he was doing something correctly. He redoubled his efforts with his mouth and gave her clitoris gentle nibbles, while adding his index finger to the sawing motion on the front wall of her tunnel. 

"Oh my God you're so good at that!" Mabel cried out. Or at least she tried to, as she was only capable of uttering incoherent babble. Dipper's right hand slid up her stomach to find a nipple, and with a pinch she shuddered even harder. His ministrations were sending her over the edge faster than she had ever gone, her days of pent up sexual energy helping to push her along. 

Barely a minute later, her orgasm erupted. She rode out the first few waves of what she knew would be a long tsunami of ecstasy. She would gladly drown in this ocean of pure pleasure. Time seemed to stand still. There was nothing left at all in the world except her love for Dipper, and the unbelievably intense feelings he was giving to her. Nothing at all ...

... except for the realization that Dipper's expert cunnilingus and fingering had stopped some seconds before. And that he was presently fighting to pull his head back from her thighs while prying desperately on her hands. Thighs that were squeezing Dipper's head securely to Mabel's genitals. Hands whose fingers were tightly wound into the hair on Dipper's head. With a startled yelp, Mabel relaxed her legs and released her grip on Dipper's head. 

Dipper immediately fell backward, gasping wildly for breath while furiously massaging his scalp. He didn't know which sensation has been more uncomfortable, the suffocation or the hair pulling. She'd done both to him a couple of times before, but this had been all kinds of worse! Weirdly, he knew that this had also been a kind of compliment to his skills, but it was small comfort at that moment. 

Mabel scrambled to where Dipper lay crumpled up at the foot of his bed. "I'm sorry! ... I'm so sorry!" she cried, still very much out of breath herself. She laid down and hugged his heaving body to her own. She kissed the top of his head around the movement of his hands, panting apologies. Moments later, the urgency had passed, though Dipper was still trying to catch his breath. Mabel kissed him tenderly on his temple. “You’ve been studying up … from the Internet … haven’t you … you big nerd!” she breathed raggedly into his ear. "Do you see ... what you do to me?"

Dipper turned and looked at Mabel's smiling face in astonishment. "... Seriously? ... You're saying ... that this ... was  _ my _ fault?" He managed a smile with the last breath of the sentence. 

* * *

A minute or so later, Dipper took Mabel’s head in her hands and kissed her warmly. “I pronounce myself fit to return to duty!” he declared proudly, and he started moving his hands down her body.

Mabel brought him up short, grabbing his wrists. She had already decided it was her turn to take control. “Oh, no! Doc Mabel’s in the house, and  _ she _ says that a full examination is in order. Starting now!” She launched her hands to his sides, and set her fingertips and thumbs loose on Dipper's ribs and stomach, with flanking attacks on his armpits, inner thighs, calves, feet, and anywhere else she could reach to reduce him to a ticklish, quivering mush. 

There was a method to Mabel’s madness. She wanted him defenseless so that she could get access to his penis. She hoped that Dipper wasn’t apprehensive, as she  _ had _ accidentally scraped her front teeth along the length of his shaft the last time she’d tried this last week. That didn’t do much for the mood. She vowed to be more careful tonight.

In the back of her mind, she was also curious. Mabel was really liking the idea of taking Dipper’s semen in her mouth for the first time. She had a long history of tasting and eating practically any edible (and sometimes inedible) things she laid eyes on. This one was new, and bound to be pretty different! She knew blow jobs were something lots of girls did, surely it couldn’t be that bad!

Dipper tried to wrestle back, but he was no match. Laughing and shaking pitifully, he shrunk down to the bed and wrapped his arms around his lower torso, attempting protect his sides and stomach from Mabel’s assault. She pinned his body down under her chest, and pushed his legs apart with her hands, leaving her target directly in front of her face. She grinned in anticipation: he must have liked the tickle warfare, because Dipper was hard again. 

She carefully wrapped her mouth around the head of the penis, swirling her tongue around it. Then she opened her jaw wide and slowly lowered her head down, reaching most of the way to the base before the tip of his four-and-a-half inches reached the back of her mouth. Then she pulled back, creating suction, using the saliva on her tongue and lips to glide fluidly over the smooth skin.

Dipper had barely processed where Mabel was headed when her wet warmth surrounded the tip. His body continued to shudder, transitioning from laughter to arousal as his sister seemed to swallow him whole. Seeing her thigh beside his face as she crouched over him, he managed to pull the leg up over his head, reached up to grab the cheeks of her butt, and pulled her sex down to his mouth. Mabel moaned loudly as his tongue found her clitoris again.

The sixty-nine position can be a bit “busy”, and the twins were finding this out. Receiving and giving oral pleasure can be hard to do at the same time for the inexperienced. Mabel would stimulate Dipper in a particular way, and he would pause to tense and moan. Then he would focus, and a special lick or nibble would cause sparks to start flying behind Mabel’s eyes, and her attention to Dipper’s genitals would stop.

No, Mabel decided enough was enough, she would not be distracted. Dipper had already brought her to a tremendous orgasm, and she would concentrate on him no matter what wonderful thing he would do to her. She pulled off with a mighty vacuumed smack, then started pistoning her head up and down on his penis. There was enough spit on it already that she didn’t have to think about producing more. She moved as quickly as she could, keeping up the lip and tongue pressure. All the while, she was lightly tickling his scrotum with her fingertips. 

Dipper tried in vain to remember what he should be doing for Mabel, but his brain was on overload. He was massively turned on by the fact that Mabel was sucking him off, and that she seemed determined to see it through to the end. They hadn’t talked about it, but Dipper  _ really _ wanted Mabel to swallow his sperm. Getting a blow job had been his earliest fantasy since he started being interested in sex.

But one not-so-small thing was working against Dipper: he had already come, barely twenty minutes before. Though the rest of his body was incredibly willing, his testicles simply didn’t have all that much to give. Mabel was making him very horny, but to force a second orgasm this quickly, much more physical effort would be needed on his part. His hips had been moving rhythmically up and down with Mabel’s head motions. Now his thrusting became more urgent, more pronounced. His grip on Mabel’s butt tightened, and his entire body rocked in tandem with his hips.

Although her jaw and lips were getting sore and her neck was tiring, Mabel kept up with Dipper’s rhythm.  _ Pretty soon, now, _ she thought in anticipation.  _ This is going to be so cool! _

Dipper was getting close, he could feel it, but at the same time he could also feel that he might not quite get over the top.  _ Just a little more stimulation _ , he thought to himself,  _ and I can get there! _

With a quick motion of his legs and arms, he pushed and rolled himself and Mabel over, so that he was now on top, his penis still securely in Mabel’s mouth. Then his hips took over and he pumped vigorously. Several moments later, he felt an intense tightening.  _ Yes, there it is! _ Dipper’s thoughts screamed in his mind. Finally, with one last, tremendously tense thrust, he yelled out in exquisitely beautiful pain, as small quantities of semen jettisoned forcefully from the end of his penis into Mabel’s throat. 

Dipper slowly recovered, kissing her inner thighs and giving her clitoris a few loving strokes with his tongue. He mumbled his love for her over and over, and between these proclamations he praised what she had done for him and how that was one of the sexiest things that he could imagine them doing together. His penis had softened, but he could still feel that Mabel had it in her mouth.

He then also realized that she hadn’t really moved much at all since he had finished. Her hands were gripping motionless on his hips. He could feel that her mouth was slack. Her lower body hadn’t moved in reaction to any of the attention that he had been giving her. And she wasn't making a sound. 

Dipper lifted himself off, turning around toward her. “Mabel?” he asked, the first touch of concern blooming in his gut as he saw the look on her face.

* * *

Mabel had not enjoyed the end of that experience. At all.

She was not physically hurt in any way, but she was incredibly uncomfortable in a way she couldn’t describe, even to herself. She had gone in an instant from a situation where she was performing a loving act for her brother, to where she felt she had lost all control and thought she could do nothing about what was happening to her. Mabel had no reference to compare to as Dipper thrust his penis into and out of her mouth, shoving her head repeatedly against the mattress. She almost gagged when he pushed himself deep into the back of her mouth, and released his ejaculation into her throat. 

She felt … violated! 

_ Is this what … rape … feels like? _ she wondered as Dipper’s penis shrank slowly in her mouth.

_ No!  _ she thought urgently to herself, vaguely aware that Dipper was speaking to her while touching and kissing parts of her lower body.  _ This wasn’t rape! Dipper would have stopped if I’d asked! I could have easily pushed him off! Dipper did  _ not _ rape me!! He  _ wouldn’t _ rape me!!  _

Yet as much as she told herself that, she felt disturbed by him as he continued to stroke and caress her, and murmur expressions of love to her. No, not disturbed, she felt  _ repelled _ by him!

_ No!! Don’t feel this way!!  _ she screamed inside herself.  _ Dipper loves me! And I love him!!  _ Don’t  _ feel this way!! DON’T FEEL THIS WAY!!!  _ She kept repeating the demand in her head over and over.

Dipper’s face suddenly appeared directly in front of her. “ _ MABEL!! _ ” Dipper yelled desperately, right in her face, while he gently grasped her shoulders, snapping her out of her paralysis. 

She focused on him. His face was contorted in shame and fear. Not the imagined Dipper of a moment ago, but her compassionate brother and lover.

"Dipper?" she cried weakly. Unwittingly, her lower lip began trembling, tears welling up in her wide eyes, her breath becoming shaky. She sobbed, a thousand emotions at work. Then she was unable to control herself any longer, and she completely broke down. Dipper held her tightly in despair, repeating apologies over and over through his own bitter tears. 

Through her wracking sobs, part of Mabel wanted to tell him that it was okay, to tell him that she knew he hadn’t meant to do that, and that she knew he would never want to make her feel that way. But the words would not come. It was all she could do to hold on to him, to silently trust that the arms that held her would keep her safe.

Dipper was determined to assume every bit of guilt for what Mabel was experiencing. The touch of her naked body against his own felt shameful now, he was getting no pleasure from it. 

They didn’t know how long they wept together. At some point Dipper had carefully pulled Mabel to a sitting position, holding her in a protective embrace. Their cries eventually faded to light sobs and sniffles. Mabel glanced at Dipper’s bedside clock, and saw that their parents were due back in less than a half hour. 

“We have to get things cleaned up before Mama and Daddy get home,” she said softly into Dipper’s shoulder. 

Dipper squeezed Mabel, and exhaled raggedly. “Okay …” he mumbled. Then he slouched his head down and got up, turning away, not wanting Mabel to even look at him.

“It’s all right, Dipper!” she managed to tell him shakily. “It’s okay!!” She willed herself to believe what she was saying. 

He stopped for a moment and closed his eyes. Then he drew a sharp breath and pressed the heels of his palms to his forehead.   _ No, it’s not all right _ , he thought miserably as he left for the bathroom.

* * *

The twins washed themselves and got into their customary sleepwear, then got to work. They had to quickly clean up the dishes and correct any evidence of their activity in Dipper's room and the bathroom. Finally, they sat at the dining room table to finish up their homework together. They wanted to make sure that nothing seemed untoward when their parents arrived home, which would be any minute now. 

An undercurrent of severe discomfort ran between the twins, as they worked in near silence. They had never felt anything like this before. 

_ I'll be okay, _ Mabel thought to herself.  _ I'll be fine! Dipper would  _ never _ try to hurt me. I just really don't want to have to ever do …  _ that _ again. What if that's a problem for him? I just need a little time, and I’ll be a-okay! … I hope. _

_ What have I done?  _ Dipper worried in his head.  _ She says it's all right, but it's not! She doesn’t trust me anymore. Will she ever trust me again? I love her, but she deserves better than me! _

In reality, what happened would not have been a big deal for almost any other couple. It was really just one of those things that didn't quite work out while having sex together. As Mabel had correctly determined, Dipper had not forced himself on her: she could have physically or verbally stopped him right from the instant he started turning them over, or anytime after that. But she had frozen. She was not prepared for anything like that to happen. And Dipper had no experience to guide him on how to moderate oneself when one’s sexual urgency gets too intense.

The truth was that the twins really had been extremely fortunate during their week-long romance in Oregon, especially since they were so young, and as this was the first sexual relationship of both of their lives. They had been spoiled by not experiencing a single uncomfortable or unsatisfying moment between them up to that point: their sex life together had been essentially perfect. Both had unrealistic expectations, thinking that sex would always be wonderful and phenomenal. Now that they had inevitably encountered a very awkward moment, it had hit them with that much greater force, and they both took it extremely hard. 

When their parents walked in the door, Mabel’s game face was on, her long-term acting career as the family ham back underway. Their mother asked Dipper how the evening went, and got a polite but subdued reply. The parents chalked it up to typical teenage moodiness, nothing to really worry about.

* * *

Later, at bedtime, Dipper was crossing the hall to his bedroom after brushing his teeth, but stopped. He was compelled to go to Mabel’s room and her partly-open door. Mabel was on her bed, lying on her stomach and kicking her legs while reading a teen magazine. Tentatively, Dipper knocked on the door frame, and Mabel looked up. “Hi, Dip!” she said brightly.

“Hey,” Dipper replied gently, mildly surprised at her good mood, and allowing a small smile that reflected hers. He eased the door open further. “Bathroom’s all yours, I’m done.”

“Thanks, Bro Bro! I’m just finishing up this story on Creggy G, and his new solo career! He’s all big with the environmentalist movement. You know, the ‘tree huggers’? 'Dang, Girl!' Hah hah!!” Smiling widely at her own joke, she lowered her face back down to the magazine.

Dipper hovered in her doorway, a glimmer of hope flickering inside him. He glanced up and down the hall. Mom was in their parents’ bedroom, Dad was in the kitchen, both out of earshot. “Mabel?” he asked quietly. 

Mabel looked up again with a smile. “Yeah?”

“... We gonna be okay?” Dipper asked hesitantly. 

She paused for a tiny instant. "I think so, Dipper. Just give me a day or two, all right?” Mabel’s smiling face never changed expression as she again returned her attention to the magazine. She looked for all the world like she was the giddy teenage girl everyone knew.

Dipper’s eyes widened, the small smile on his face disappearing in a fraction of a second. This was her “Mabel” mask, he realized. He reeled, seeing that even in this private moment, Mabel wasn’t turning “Mabel” off for him. She’d never done that before. 

And he couldn’t believe how painful that felt!

Dipper just wanted to let Mabel know how much he loved her. He could safely tell her in that moment, their parents couldn’t hear. He could quickly move to her and hug her, and even give her a few kisses! He could at least walk over to her and offer a fistbump. There were any number of ways to get that simple message across to her. 

But at that moment, he was convinced she wouldn’t reciprocate.  _ Nor should she _ , he thought to himself. The guilt Dipper felt was stronger than ever: he was now certain he did not deserve Mabel's love. The sting prevented him from saying or doing any of those things. 

Instead, he decided she was better off without him.

“G’night, Mabel,” he murmured.

Mabel glanced up. “Night, Dipper!” she replied, seemingly happy. 

Dipper slowly walked across the hallway to his room, not bothering to say goodnight to either of his parents. He gently closed the door. 

The smile momentarily dropped from Mabel's face when she heard Dipper's door snap shut, as she tried to keep sadness and pain from overwhelming her. She forced the smile back again, and continued reading.

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

The remainder of the first week of school went by in a haze for the twins, in their separate ways.

For Mabel, she dedicated all of her waking hours to concentrating on creating the illusion of normalcy. By all outwards appearances to everyone who knew her, her acting was perfect. Her parents, neighbors, friends, and teachers only saw the whirlwind of the Pines family, delighting and flustering everyone around her just as she always did. Deep inside, she suppressed everything else. The role that she had taken on, that of “Mabel”, was easier for her to adopt on a full-time basis than to deal with the real raw emotions she faced in her relationship with Dipper.

It was hardest at night, alone in her room. With nobody to distract her, nobody to perform for, her feelings fought to escape. The constant battle to keep her emotions about Dipper at bay was not conducive to sleep. On Wednesday night, the night of their disastrous tryst, she could not find any rest at all. Thursday night, it was after four o’clock when a brief sleep finally claimed her. 

Dipper was not cut out to be the actor Mabel was, nor was he terribly inclined to hide his dejection from anyone anyways. On Thursday morning, it was obvious to his mother that something was bothering him, but he wouldn’t tell her what was wrong. 

He was vaguely distracted by schoolwork, but appeared depressed to his friends and teachers both days at school. Anthony asked Dipper over to his house again. Ezra privately asked if Dipper wanted to unload anything on him. Both invitations were gloomily turned down.

After arriving home separately from Mabel on Thursday afternoon, their parents respected Dipper’s wish to be left alone. His father guessed that perhaps his son was dealing with a new bully at school, or some other uncomfortable situation facing a socially awkward introvert in the first week at a new school. He assured Dipper that he was there if he needed to talk about anything. 

Their mother, however, did find it a touch odd that Mabel appeared unconcerned by Dipper’s behavior. Normally perking up her brother by whatever means necessary was the primary job of the “alpha twin” if he got into one of his sourpuss moods.

* * *

By Friday evening, Mabel’s ability to mask her own fatigue and sorrow was almost at its limit, and she knew it. She claimed an upset stomach after supper, got up from the table without a glance at Dipper, and went to her room and closed her door.

Dipper watched Mabel leave, then turned his attention back to his dinner plate and his barely-touched food. He knew that her act, trying to carry on as normal, was tearing her apart. 

_ And I’ve made it even worse for her _ , he told himself.  _ At first there was our secret, which is bad enough, but at least we had each other. Now she’s completely alone, and hurt, making herself sick, and she can’t tell anyone! It's all my fault! How could I have done this to her? _

His thoughts were so low, to his dismay he found he was right on the brink of tears, and was about to fall over the edge. He had to get away from his parents right away! He quickly asked to be excused from the table.

“Dipper,” his mother said with concern, “you’ve not eaten anything! You barely ate yesterday at dinner, either. Please tell us what’s wrong!”

“It’s nothing, Mom,” Dipper replied quietly, getting up from his chair and turning toward the hallway to the bedrooms. He hoped they didn’t see the wetness in his eyes.

His father spoke up sternly. “Dip, being in a bad mood does not give you license to be rude, or to not clean up your dinner plate.” Dipper did not stop walking. “You come back here and …”

“Just leave me alone!” he snapped back, not turning his head so that they couldn’t see the streams now running freely down his cheeks. He hoped his voice just sounded angry, rather than betray the despair he felt. He strode quickly to his room and slammed the door.

Mabel heard the commotion as she was getting her nightgown on. She knew Dipper was still upset about Wednesday night, and she allowed herself to feel her first twinge of sympathy for someone other than herself in two days. But her overtired brain would not allow her to mull on the thought any further. She collapsed into her bed and quickly succumbed to a long, dreamless sleep of exhaustion.

* * *

Mabel awoke at almost noon on Saturday morning, having been allowed to sleep as long as she wanted due to her proclamation of stomach illness. She was stiff, hungry, and terribly in need of going to the bathroom.

Most importantly, though, the long rest had dissolved most of her fear and confusion about what had happened between herself and Dipper on Wednesday night. As Mabel rose to sit on the edge of the bed, her heart skipped as she realized that she badly wanted to reconnect with him again. She had completely shut him out the last couple of days, and she felt awful about it. She remembered hearing him storm off to his room last night. She had to talk to him. She had to let him know she still loved him!

She hadn’t resolved  _ everything  _ that was uncomfortable about the events of Wednesday night. It was still terrifying to recall the helplessness she felt, the feeling of violation. She never wanted to go through that again, but she absolutely did not want to lose what she had with Dipper because of it. 

Looking outside, she saw that it was a gorgeous day, unusually sunny for the Bay area. She got dressed in a t-shirt and shorts, and grabbed her Rasta-orange sweater, tying the sleeves around her waist. 

Mabel found she was alone in the house, but heard activity in the backyard. She looked through the kitchen windows and saw her father digging with a shovel outside. Mama had been pleading for the backyard renovation since the spring, and now it looked like Daddy was going to make it happen. Piles of freshly-dug earth marked where new landscaping features were to be located. She saw stacks of paving stones, and bricks for a new retaining wall, which must have been delivered that morning while she slept.

Her father was wearing jeans and a sleeveless undershirt, and judging by the sheen that covered his body, he was working very hard on this warm day. He paused his shoveling to speak instructions on where more stones needed to be dropped. That was when Mabel saw a shirtless Dipper emerge from behind the pile of landscaping stones, hefting a slab intended for a new walkway. Drenched in sweat and obviously very tired, he staggered under the load to the prescribed location, then dropped and placed the stone carefully on the smoothed gravel surface that their father had built earlier.

She correctly guessed that Daddy had not punished Dipper for his inappropriate manners the previous night, but was now making up for it. She watched Dipper closely. 

_ He looks miserable,  _ she thought, taking in his weary expression and slumped posture.  But even though his movements betrayed his woe, his sweaty body still made her feel all tingly from head to toe.  Dipper was no Adonis; skinny, pale, maybe even gangly, that’s how most people saw him.  But all Mabel could see, after a good night’s sleep, was what he would look like in a few years.  _ Dipper, you big dork! _ she thought wistfully.  _ You’re gonna be such a hottie!  _

For his part, Dipper knew he would pay for his outburst at the dinner table the previous evening. He endured the back-breaking labor silently. Working for Grunkle Stan at the Mystery Shack had been beneficial for his work ethic. Mom was out for a weekend appointment with one of her clients, and Dad was usually a little easier on him when she wasn’t around. But not today.  _ Guess I really pissed him off last night _ , he thought. _ Serves me right, I suppose. I deserve this! _

Dipper heard the sliding door open and close, knowing it was Mabel. Or rather “Mabel”, he remembered, the air-quotes name for the character she played for everyone, including himself now.  _ That's the way it should be,  _ he thought bitterly.  _ She should shun me for the rest of my life, for what I've done to her!  _ He finished the placement of the heavy slab, avoiding looking up. 

"Hey Pumpkin!" called out their father to Mabel. "Good to see you up. Feeling better?"

"Better than the two of you, I bet," she replied sympathetically, as the heat of the day hit her. She looked around to their neighbors' hilly backyards through the mature trees and over low fences, seeing many people relaxing rather than working. "I assume Mama must have some pretty cray-cray blackmail on file about you, Daddy, cause I can't think of a worse way than this to spend the day!"

Stopping to lean on the handle of the shovel, and glancing at Dipper and back again, their father sighed. "Yeah, that file's pretty thick, actually!" he said with a half-smile. "But your brother and I had some things to work on here, so this is on  _ me  _ today." He paused, addressing Dipper's slouched back as his son arrived at the stack to retrieve another stone. "You're still not much for conversation today, Dip, but I do appreciate how hard you're working. Thank you!" he said sincerely. 

Dipper crouched down with bent knees, preparing to lift another of the seemingly endless supply of stones. He looked up briefly to his father, nodded acknowledgement, then grunted as he started back toward the path with his new load. He stared down at the ground in front of him as he walked. He couldn't look at Mabel. He wouldn't. Dipper had convinced himself that he was responsible for all of her pain, and she deserved to not be subjected to his attention. 

"You both look  _ way _ too overheated!" Mabel said. "Daddy, I want to make some real lemonade for you guys. Can you go get some lemons from the market?"

"My rubber arm has been duly twisted!" he replied immediately, smiling broadly. "You know I can't resist your lemonade! But please, no plastic dinosaurs! And we can use a rest and time to get something to eat." Again, he turned to Dipper. "You can take a break until after lunch, Dip."

Dipper laid down the stone and started positioning it on the path. "It's okay," he replied sullenly. "I'll keep working on this until you get back."

Their father shook his head sadly as he picked up his overshirt and headed toward the house. He stopped briefly beside Mabel. "See what you can do to cheer him up, Pumpkin?" he whispered. 

She nodded earnestly. He patted her shoulder as he walked past her. "You're a great sister," he murmured appreciatively to her. 

Mabel watched Dipper walk tiredly back to the pile of stones.  _ No, _ she thought to herself, biting her bottom lip to keep tears at bay.  _ He's a great brother! _

* * *

Moments later, with their father on his way to the nearest grocery store many blocks away, Mabel walked slowly to Dipper. He had his back to her, wrestling more paving stones from the pile and standing them up. She hadn't really spoken to him at all since Wednesday, just a few cursory comments around the house, trying to make "Mabel" appear authentic. This was going to be their first time actually talking since the uncomfortable incident.

Her subconscious, it seems, had other plans. Unbidden, a quick flashback of their last sexual contact entered her mind. It stopped her in her tracks. With effort, she forced the experience away. 

_ No, I will  _ not _ feel this! Not now! _ She resumed her slow walk, just a few yards away to her brother.

Dipper heard the soft footfalls behind him.  _ She's going to blame me _ , he thought with dread. _ That’s why she sent Dad to the store. She should hit me. Maybe she’ll use Dad’s shovel.  _ He stopped his work, but kept his back to Mabel, accepting of whatever his sister wanted to do to him.

He felt her punch him … but it wasn’t remotely hard enough.  Barely more than what it felt like to bump into a door frame.  He reluctantly turned to face the music.

And for the second time that week, he found Mabel presenting her fist to him. Her face was wet, her mouth turned up in a trembling, lopsided smile. 

Dipper’s poise disappeared, as he was unprepared for Mabel to want to be forgiving of him, to communicate love to him. Hormones he never knew existed flooded through his body, overwhelming him. He staggered, needing to grasp the pile of landscaping bricks. Mabel caught him. He disbelievingly allowed himself to be guided unsteadily to the ground, where they knelt in front of each other. Mabel's heart was breaking to see Dipper's sadness and shame. 

Tears mixed with the sweat on his face. His chest struggled, unable to draw a breath. He looked at her with desperate eyes. "I’m … I'm  _ so _ sorry!" he finally managed to choke faintly. 

"I know," she wept quietly, pulling him gently into her arms. "I know ... I'm sorry too!" 

Both of them broke down then, sobbing uninhibited into each other's shoulders. They clutched each other tightly for several minutes, allowing their shared grief and the enormous pressure of their secret to be released. 

"Are you kids alright?" called a concerned voice.

It was Mrs. Zeidenberg, their neighbor in the home next to theirs. She and her husband were an older retired couple who had been in the neighborhood long before the Pines family moved there. She had walked over to the low fence to see how her neighbor's landscaping project was coming along, when she saw the twins huddled and crying together. 

Dipper and Mabel separated quickly and clumsily, unsuccessfully trying to regain their composure. Mabel panicked over how they must have appeared. Dipper was thankful that at least they hadn't been kissing.

"Yeah, we're fine!" he blurted in a quivering voice, standing up and trying to wipe his face with his dirty hands.

Mrs. Zeidenberg's eyes narrowed slightly. They could tell she was concerned, and very curious. "Are you sure?"

Amazingly, a perfectly plausible story came to Dipper. He didn't even have to lie! "It's okay,” he sniffed, helping Mabel to her feet. “I was just … helping Mabel through some stuff ... boy troubles.” He looked over to his sister. “She's … having problems with some big jerk of a guy." His voice broke as he placed his arm protectively around her shoulder.

Mabel looked back at her brother and immediately picked up the ball. "Yeah ... and Dipper's got a thing for this messed up girl, too!" she said haltingly, sliding her hand around his bare waist and giving him a squeeze. She turned back to their neighbor with a small smile. "We were just trying to make each other feel better!" 

The older woman smiled sweetly. "Oh, goodness! You two are just the nicest pair! You are  _ awfully  _ lucky to have each other to lean on!" she told them fondly. "I’m sorry to bother you, I'll leave you alone now. Good luck, kids!" She turned back towards her house. 

The twins' adrenaline was pumping from the close call, hearts pounding, panting lightly. They were alone again, but remained in plain view of the backyards of at least four other houses. Still with an arm around each other, they looked around, then at each other. 

Mabel spoke first in a harsh whisper. "The house!"

"Definitely the house!" Dipper whispered back without hesitation. 

They ran to the patio door, barely closing it behind them before urgently grabbing each other. Their mouths came fiercely together, their arms forcing their bodies together securely. Both of them were desperate to replace the emptiness they had been feeling, wanting to feel love again as quickly and as strongly as possible. 

They stumbled to Mabel's bedroom and collapsed together on her bed. Both knew what they needed without even speaking. They intertwined their bare legs, wrapped their arms as far around as they could, pressed their chins to the side of each other's necks, and squeezed with every muscle in their bodies. The catharsis was almost immediate, the remainder of their heartache seemingly washed away after a minute or so of the intense, intimate embrace. 

They backed off a bit and rested their heads on the mattress, kissing gently, their noses touching lightly together, their moist eyes peering directly at one another. They started smiling even before they spoke. 

"I love you so much," they said softly in unison, smiles broadening into wide grins.  _ Still twins! _

Wrapping themselves together for another squeeze, Dipper happily sighed, "You were absolutely right, Mabel. I hereby approve of the name 'not-so-awkward-sibling-hug'. It's got a nice ring to it!" Mabel hummed in agreement, contentedly holding Dipper’s sweaty body close to her own. 

They heard the car door slam in the driveway outside, startling them. Eyes wide and quickly scrambling to their feet, they dashed out to the kitchen. In a low voice, Mabel cheekily said, "Well,  _ that _ was almost an  _ extremely _ -awkward-sibling-hug!" Dipper didn’t see the humor in the situation as their father walked in the side door carrying a bag of produce.

* * *

Life didn't exactly return to "normal" for Dipper and Mabel after that, but compared to the previous few days, things were a cake walk.

The twins avoided their parents’ gentle prompts on what had been wrong with Dipper, and what Mabel had done to cheer him up. Dipper called it “just some stuff at school.” Mabel, always loathe to lie, told them she “hugged it out of him!” They were satisfied with the vague explanations, happy to just have Dipper back to his normal self.

That evening, after the kids got dressed for sleep, Dipper went to conspire quietly in Mabel’s room for several minutes. They sat on her bed, a discrete distance maintained between them. Mabel wanted to hold him again, to be able to reconnect with those feelings that had been interrupted that morning before lunch. Dipper had to reign in Mabel’s enthusiasm, reminding her of what they discussed in Oregon and on the bus ride home. It was risky, all it would take would be their father or mother opening her bedroom door at any time. Getting caught even in an affectionate embrace would be difficult enough to explain. And he asked her if they had ever been able to limit themselves to just hugging. Grumbling, she agreed with him.

“All right, I’ll try to back off. But you owe me two things!” Mabel told her brother.

Dipper raised an eyebrow. “Only two?”

“Two  _ new _ things!” she retorted. “First, you never replied to  _ this _ outside today.” She held her fist up towards him. She found his smile adorable as he returned the fistbump. They found they couldn’t pull back their fists quite so easily, so they kept them pushing together.

“Second,” she said in a much lower voice, “on Wednesday night, you owe me everything you’ve got stored up down _ there!”  _ pointing at his crotch with her other hand and smiling wickedly. “We’re going to be able to go back to doing things the  _ right _ way!”

Dipper blushed, his breathing starting to become more labored. He was very aware of his penis hardening inside his sleeping shorts. He reluctantly stood up from the bed, smiled ruefully and shook his head at his seductress. “See,  _ this _ is why we need to be careful!” he said quietly, gesturing down to the rising tent pole in his crotch. “Now I’ve got to get back to my room looking like this!”

Mabel just continued to give him her smirk. “Sweet dreams, Bro Bro!”

Dipper blushed deeper. “Guaranteed! G’night, Mabel!”

“Night, Dipper!” replied Mabel gleefully, as Dipper cracked open the door, looked both ways, then closed her door behind him. 

* * *


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

Wednesday was taking altogether too long to arrive for Mabel’s liking. By Tuesday, the previous few days had been a fearsome test of her long-term acting ability. She had successfully deprived herself off any outwardly-visible signs of affection for Dipper, but it had been a struggle. It seemed such a cruel hand to be dealt, to be so near to the love of her life, and for them to be forced to only be brother and sister.

She idly remembered a joking comment that Dipper had made the evening they had returned from the pivotal weekend in Portland back to Gravity Falls, just over two weeks ago. Dipper had offhandedly said that he almost wished that they didn’t have to live together: that it might be easier to not have to see each other all the time, and be somehow less painful. Part of Mabel was actually starting to consider the pros and cons of such an idea, though the rest of her hated that part for having such thoughts.

Still, questioning her decision of how to adapt to her new lot in life never occurred to her. Originally, the plan had been that both of them would try to actually put their feelings on the back burner, that they make an attempt to truly cool their emotions for one another until they were eighteen. Mabel had tossed that plan away the very night they arrived home, deciding instead to  _ hide  _ her feelings instead of losing them. Even the terrible feelings of violation from last week had not budged her opinion that she would never,  _ ever  _ deny to herself her love for her brother.

Dipper, on the other hand, was more pragmatic. To him, actually losing Mabel from his life was the worst possible outcome. He never meant the comment about not living together, as he would rather deal with the discomfort of living together platonically than to be separated. He also knew the danger of being separated forcibly, rather than voluntarily. And that could happen anytime they made a mistake. Dipper knew that risk avoidance is all about not allowing an event to happen in the first place. To that end, he still agreed with the advice that Grunkle Stan had given them just before they came home: it would be best if they actually tried to end the romantic part of their relationship. Difficult? Yes. Painful? Without a doubt. But impossible? No. Not impossible.

_ Unless, of course, your sister completely abandons that plan immediately after you arrive home, and finding opportunity to talk about these things becomes really, really difficult! _

Dipper found himself stuck in between. He didn’t have the acting ability or the emotional stomach to go the full-Mabel route, not without making a mistake. But he also couldn’t just completely let go of his intense feelings, a proposition made even more difficult by Mabel apparently insisting on Wednesdays being the designated sex nights. He resolved to attempt to turn everything he felt about Mabel “off” every other opportunity he had, and see how that worked.

So it was on Tuesday night, as the Pines family was eating supper. Their parents always insisted on eating together at the dining room table whenever possible. After saying prayers and being thankful for the meal, they started discussing their day as they ate.

While their mother and father were talking about one of their mother’s clients, Mabel noticed Dipper slouching in his seat directly across from her. Figuring his legs were probably stuck out in front of him, she couldn’t resist the opportunity to play “footsies”. She moved her foot to find and caress his legs beneath the table. 

At the first contact, Dipper thought it  _ might _ have been an innocent touch, but that possibility went out the window as he felt Mabel’s foot slide up, then down his calf. He stared intently at Mabel, but she was dutifully filling her fork with food from her plate.  _ I’d be impressed with her multitasking if this weren’t such a serious situation,  _ he thought to himself. 

He straightened up in his chair and pulled his legs back, ending the tease. When she threw him a questioning look, he shot a warning look back. He felt a little bad when he saw a hurt expression cross her face, then it was gone as their mother asked her a question about her school day. 

Dipper hoped that they would have a chance tomorrow night to talk about how taking an unnecessary risk could be  _ really bad  _ for their relationship.

Mabel hoped that they would have a chance tomorrow night to talk about how taking a minimal risk could be  _ really good _ for their relationship.

* * *

The twins had a good day at school the next day. Dipper, Ezra, and Anthony made plans to start a new informal school club for role-playing game enthusiasts. They figured that they may as well stake their claim officially as the new school nerds, since it would be less uncomfortable to proclaim the title themselves than to be labelled after the fact by the other idiots at school.

Mabel and her friends all excitedly had auditioned for the school’s drama club. The school was planning on a musical production of “Hairspray”, and although Mabel had to admit that her singing skills, though undoubtedly enthusiastic, were somewhat limited, she still eagerly anticipated the chance to participate. Mostly though, she silently squirmed in anticipation of the evening to come at home with Dipper.

Per routine, the twins walked with Anthony and Sandra. Against routine, Anthony and Sandra found something to talk about separate from Dipper and Mabel. Anthony’s brother had played the original John Waters movie of “Hairspray” for him, while Sandra had seen the musical, and they were comparing the differences between them. They laughed over which guy at school should play the part of Tracy’s mother. A natural spark formed between the two of them, which Mabel found incredibly cute. Even Dipper noticed them, and envied that if they were to get together, they wouldn’t have the obstacles he and Mabel faced.

When they got home, their mother was home as per normal, but was also occupied with client calls as usual. She worked from home out of an office that the family had converted from what was supposed to be a guest bedroom on the opposite side of the house from the other bedrooms, and presently, as on most days, was engrossed with one, or possibly many clients. Their father was still at work, as he typically was until almost six. When the twins came home and passed by the office, their mother waved silently with her ear glued to her phone.

Before Dipper could get distracted by a video game or turning on the computer, Mabel grabbed him by the hand and dragged him to her room. She shut the door, then pinned him to the back of her door and urgently pressed her lips onto his, while snaking her arms around his neck and back and pulling him close.

Dipper was unprepared for the assault, but decided they were safe enough and gladly submitted. His own arms were quickly around Mabel’s body, and his tongue found hers. Both of them were getting wound up, excited despite the fact their mother was under the same roof.

Mabel felt the front of Dipper’s pants, moaning into his mouth at the lump that she knew was forming there. She pulled him across the room to her dresser, where a towel was waiting, left there that morning in anticipation of this moment. She grabbed the towel and pulled Dipper back over towards her bed. Mabel dropped the towel there and started fumbling with the button and zipper on Dipper’s pants. Dipper broke off the kiss in alarm, but before he could object, Mabel breathed “Just trust me! And be quiet!” then she continued her work releasing his penis from his pants. It was fully erect and ready as she pulled his pants and underwear down to his knees.

She then spun him around, making Dipper face the bed, and reached around to grasp his penis with her right hand while she held his chest and right shoulder securely with her left arm. Mabel then started jacking back and forth quickly, feeling Dipper’s body tense with pleasure. A strangled grunt of arousal emitted from his throat, followed by desperate panting.

“Pick up the towel,” she breathed into his ear as she continued his stimulation, “and get ready!”

Dipper understood, managing to grasp the towel and hold it in front of himself as Mabel maintained her rapid movement on his sensitive organ.

Seconds later, her efforts reached fruition. Dipper suddenly tensed his whole body, then exploded into the towel, while making pitiful noises that he muffled within his closed mouth. 

Mabel stopped her masturbation of her surprised twin, and held him close to herself. He continued panting slowly, amazed at what his sister was able to do to him so quickly. He whispered his approval through quiet gasps “That … was awesome! … I love you!”

“I love you, too!” she murmured back, turning Dipper back around to face her and pull him into her arms, clutching his heaving body. Then she suddenly put her lips to his ear. “That’s Round One!” she rasped. “You owe me Round Two! I’ll see you later, Sir Dipshit!” 

With that, Mabel released her grip on Dipper and strode to the door. She did crack the door first to make sure no parents were waiting on the other side, then with an evil grin flung the door open.  Dipper frantically started pulling up his pants and underwear while Mabel watched with satisfaction, then she sauntered out to the kitchen to prepare an after-school snack, leaving her bedroom door wide open.

_ Dammit, Mabel! _ Dipper cursed inwardly, finishing doing up his pants.  _ You can’t keep doing things like that! We’ve  _ got  _ to be more careful! _

* * *

Soon afterward, the family had eaten their dinner, and the twins’ parents left for their bible study. The car wasn’t even out of the driveway when Mabel sprinted to her room. “Be right ba-aack!” she called out, then slammed her door.

Dipper walked over to the living room sofa and sat down nervously. He wondered to himself what his crazy sister had planned for him, knowing that she’d been concocting something since last weekend. The thinking itself ate up any time he had to prepare.

A few minutes later Dipper had his answer. He heard Mabel’s door open, and then odd-sounding steps coming down the hallway. He turned to watch as she appeared from around the corner. 

His mouth dropped open.  _ Holy shit! _ he thought. It was the same thought and facial reaction he’d had in Portland when he’d seen Mabel in the same outfit. Well,  _ some _ of the same outfit.

Mabel’s smile was huge and dazzling as she posed provocatively for Dipper with her hands on her hips. She had dug into her closet for some of the clothes she hadn’t worn in some time. He recognized the black beret perched neatly on top of her head. She had on her darkest sunglasses. Her old black leather jacket was a bit too small and was unzipped, revealing what she wore beneath. 

Which, as Dipper observed in stunned silence, was not much. Mabel proudly showed off the bikini,  _ the _ bikini, that she had briefly teased Dipper with in Portland. Also black, like the rest of her ensemble, it was smaller than any swimsuit either twin had ever seen. The top consisted of two tiny triangles of fabric that managed to cover only the barest portion of Mabel’s small breasts, connected by skinny elastic threads. The thong bottoms were a slightly larger triangle connected together by the same impossibly skinny elastic. The contours of her camel toe were clearly defined, and it was obvious that she shaved her pubic hair.

Completing the look was the black high heel shoes she had purchased with the bikini. They successfully forced Mabel’s posture into a sultry stance, so that she arched her back and thrust her breasts out. 

Mabel was having the time of her life.  _ I get to play dress up, and wind up Dipper at the same time! What combination could be better? Wait’ll he gets a load of this! _ She struck another pose, leaning her shoulders back against the wall, raising one foot to rest against the wall behind her and raising her arms above her head, spreading out the open jacket. Her smile widened even further as she watched Dipper’s awed expression. She slowly took off her glasses and dropped them to the floor, then removed the beret and tossed it playfully to Dipper on the sofa.

She posed again, this time turning and bending over at the waist to lean forward against the wall, arching her back and prominently showing off her essentially naked behind while supporting herself on her forearms. She turned her head back to Dipper and slowly licked her upper lip seductively. Mabel couldn’t get enough of the way her brother was so obviously turned on by her. 

Mabel was also getting herself worked up to a fever pitch. She had only masturbated once in the past week, and that was Saturday afternoon after she and Dipper had made up. Days of unreleased sexual tension were struggling to escape. She wiggled her index finger deliberately, beckoning Dipper to come join her.

In a daze, Dipper slowly made his way to Mabel, in the back of his mind thankful that she was staying in the back of the room, largely away from the big window that looked out onto the street. He approached her inviting ass, a small moan coming from his mouth as he palmed both of her cheeks gently. Mabel had her head turned back toward him, an aroused and seriously overjoyed look on her face.  _ She actually likes doing this!  _ Dipper saw.  _ She’s not demeaning herself for my sake. She  _ wants _ to be the tease! _

He slid his hand up her back beneath the jacket as he moved to her side. He cupped her face with his other hand and kissed her deeply, satisfied humming emitting from both of them. Dipper was thinking that this was a little awkward, both of them bent over with their faces pressed up next to the wall, so he tried to guide Mabel to straighten up.

Mabel pulled away and refused to move. “No,” she said quietly but firmly. “Right here!” Her voice grew huskier. “Right now!”

The tone and intensity of her voice made Dipper’s penis snap even more to attention. He kissed her hard on the mouth, then maneuvered his head under her to kiss and run his tongue down the front of her body, down to her belly button. He moved the hand that had been up her back down over her butt, then slowly between her legs, moving the thong aside. As he straightened up to move behind Mabel, he gently found the entrance to her vagina and eased his middle finger inside. Mabel tensed in anticipation, and Dipper was surprised she was already so wet. He unfastened his pants, for a second looking back to the living room window, and wondered if anyone could see in if they were trying. 

_ Oh, hell, who am I kidding?  _ he thought quickly.  _ There’s no way I’m stopping now!  _

Mabel was beside herself. Dipper’s trail of kisses down the front of her body was just torture. Being naughty was making her hornier than she could stand! After his pants and underwear were at his ankles, Dipper started to pull down at the strings of the bikini bottom. Mabel whined back to him, “Don’t bother! Just do it  _ now! _ ” 

Dipper didn't need to be told twice. Pulling the thong aside again, he used his other hand to aim his penis to her slick opening. When he felt himself starting to slide in, he grasped Mabel's hips and pushed himself in with a single thrust, holding himself in. Mabel loudly moaned her approval. " _ Please! _ " she gasped urgently, unfocused eyes staring straight ahead to the wall. "Ooh, please, Dipper! I need this so bad!" 

Dipper smiled, cocked his head to the side with raised eyebrows, and muttered “Oka-ay!”

Gripping harder to her waist, Dipper started fucking Mabel vigorously. They had done it “doggie” style once before, but never standing up, and never with as much urgency, so he slipped out a couple of times when he pulled back too fast. He wasn’t pushing in fully, because he thought he would slam Mabel’s face into the wall. But soon he was pulling back on her with his hands, coordinated with his thrusts, so she wouldn’t be hammered forward so hard. The living room was now filled with the sound of Dipper’s pelvis smacking solidly and repeatedly into Mabel’s butt, mixed with the groans of two very aroused teenagers.

Mabel loved the feeling of Dipper's penis slamming into her, but this position was getting tiring. Her grunts started to sound frustrated as she struggled to build up to her climax. 

Dipper was in no hurry, his prior orgasm having taken the edge off his need to come. He could feel the tickle, and knew he could come again if he tried, but he wanted to concentrate on satisfying his sister. He pushed in hard, bent forward over Mabel and used his left hand against the wall to support his weight, his fingers finding hers and intertwining with them. With his right hand, he reached around Mabel's waist, and his first two fingers found her clitoris. As he started rubbing her sensitive button, he used his wrist and forearm to pull her back into himself, and began to thrust in shorter, but much faster, strokes. 

He knew immediately that he was on the right track. Mabel's noises became louder and higher-pitched. Dipper felt her pushing back against him on each thrust. 

"Oh, God!" Mabel cried, gripping Dipper's fingers tightly in her own. "Don't stop!" Dipper tried to increase his pace, matching the speed of his hips to his fingers' massaging of her clitoris. 

Mabel lowered her chin to her chest and let out a strangled wail as a tremendous orgasm smashed over her. Dipper lovingly kept up the rhythm, continuing to stimulate Mabel through peak after peak of pleasure.  _ She deserves every ounce of joy I can give her _ , he thought happily. 

After what seemed like forever, it became too much for Mabel. Her legs gave out beneath her, and Dipper couldn't hold both of them up. The twins collapsed into a pile on the floor, Mabel curled up and gasping helplessly for breath, while Dipper rolled over and sat with his back to the wall while panting and laughing at their clumsy predicament. 

Mabel had drawn enough air to turn her head and gaze at her lover. “Hot …  _ effing _ … Belgian … waffles!” she managed to get out. She gave him a salute, then reached out with her hand, and Dipper grasped it. “You, sir ... are incredible!” she proclaimed with an exhausted smile, shaking his hand as if in congratulations. “Don’t you  _ ever _ stop making me feel this way!”

“I promise!” Dipper replied. “I love you, Mabel. I’ll do anything for you!”

“Yeah? Good … I’ll remember that!” Mabel said mischievously, still panting. “Start by explaining … why  _ this _ ,” Mabel reached over and lightly grasped Dipper’s slick penis, “is still hard! … What happened to Round two?”

Dipper made a little gasp as Mabel started gently jacking him. “What can I say? You did a …” he was forced to pause for another long intake of breath, “...  _ much  _ better job with Round one than I’m used to!” He paused, and stroked her cheek affectionately. "Plus, I held back a bit ..." closing his eyes and gasping again, "to make sure I made you feel good first." Dipper's voice went up at the end as Mabel's hand continued its work. 

Mabel got to her knees and crawled over to Dipper. She held the back of his head with her free hand and kissed him deeply, while slightly speeding up her stroking of his penis with her other hand. He moaned helplessly into her mouth. 

"No more holding back," she ordered quietly. She released his penis and cupped his scrotum, while giving him a smoldering stare. "I want _ all _ of this! Understood, Sir Dipshit?"

"Aye, Captain!" Dipper grinned, not caring that he had mixed their role-playing metaphors. 

Mabel planted another kiss, then got up off of her brother. They got to their feet, Dipper managing despite his ankles still being anchored together by his pants and underwear. Mabel laughed as he half-shuffled, half-hopped his way behind her down the hallway, catching up to her outside his room. 

He embraced her waist and inhaled on her mouth, while starting to guide them through his doorway. But Mabel felt a tiny prick of apprehension, which she knew was linked to last Wednesday night, and what happened the last time she was on Dipper's bed. She subtly turned them back around to her room instead. 

Dipper yanked down the leather jacket off of Mabel's shoulders, followed by Mabel pushing his shirt up over his head. He fumbled with the knots of the bathing suit for a few moments, before she told him to take care of his own pants, socks, and shoes, and she'd handle the swimsuit and her stilettos. They were quickly naked and back into each other's enthusiastic arms, necking with abandon. 

Mabel pulled Dipper backward to her bed, leaning back so Dipper would flop on top of her. Giggling, they fumbled their way higher on the bed, then Mabel spread her legs wide and reached for Dipper's penis. He let her pull him down to her, lining him up with her vagina. 

He pushed into her easily as their mouths and bodies merged again, accompanied by incredible feelings of satisfaction and completion by both of the siblings. 

Dipper moved his hips slowly and gently, humming happily through their passionate kisses, his arms holding her close. Mabel wrapped her legs around Dipper's behind, rocking in slow rhythm with him, gliding her hands over his whole body. 

The twins simply made love, tenderly attempting to somehow fuse their bodies and souls together. They took their time, unabashedly free for the moment from the world that made their love forbidden.

_ This is just so natural, so perfect! _ Dipper thought.  _ How could this possibly be wrong? _

_ I can't imagine loving anyone more, _ Mabel thought,  _ or being any happier! I don't want this moment to end! _

Eventually, their breathing became heavier as the pace of their dance gradually quickened. They broke their kissing to just stare in awe into each other's eyes, their sweating foreheads pressing together. Their desire built, their bodies moving together more fervently, ragged breaths joining passionate noises of pure adoration. They could feel that they were getting close, and they knew that they would climax together. And still they couldn't stop gazing at each other. 

They both knew it was coming, and that by now it was corny, but they didn't care because it was _ right _ . "I love you so much!" they panted urgently to each other in unison. Smiling in unbelievable happiness, they began to press their mouths together again, ready to hold each other tightly through the exquisitely perfect finish that would come in just a few moments ...

… when they heard the sound of their father’s voice at the other end of the house, as he came through the side door. "Hey kids! We're back! Bible study was canceled."

Dipper and Mabel froze, gaping in horrified shock at Mabel's wide-open bedroom door, then at each other.

"Kids?" came their father's voice again. 

"Shit!" they whispered desperately in unison.

* * *


	6. Chapter 6

* * *

“Where are they?” the twins heard their father asking their mother, then in a louder voice, “Dipper! Mabel!” 

Eyes wide with panic, Dipper quickly jumped back from Mabel, flinching in pain as his foreskin did not unroll back up on its own as he pulled out. Mabel was unable to move, instinctively holding tightly to Dipper’s shoulders. Both were terrified, trying desperately to calm their gasping breaths.

The inside of Mabel’s room was not visible from the main part of the house, but they knew that the full length of the bedroom hallway was. Dipper had no way to dash out of Mabel’s room across the hall to his own room without being seen.

He whispered frantically. “ _ Answer him!! _ ” as he forced himself out of Mabel’s grip and to his feet.

“I’m here! In my room!” Mabel called, trying to gather her wits, looking around for her clothes that she had changed out of when her parents left. She spied them on her dresser. Dipper tip-toed to the door and closed it carefully.

“What are you doing?” came the voice of their mother, who they could tell was curious because of the long pause before Mabel’s reply. 

Mabel was on her feet, and bent over to gather up her bikini and jacket, and flung them under her bed. Dipper picked up his clothes and shoes. “Nothing, Mama!” she called back loudly, the shake in her voice obvious to anyone who was listening.

Their mother was closer now. “That doesn’t sound like nothing, Pumpkin!” she replied with a touch of authority in her voice. “What’s going on? Why did you leave your sunglasses on the floor out here? And where’s Dipper?”

Dipper was looking around in desperation.  _ She’s going to come in here!  _ he screamed to himself.  _ I’ve got to find a place to hide!  _ He dashed quietly to Mabel’s closet and opened it, finding it completely filled with boxes and clothes.  _ Seriously? Thanks Mabel! _

“Please don’t come in, Mama!!” Mabel cried. She gestured hysterically to Dipper for him to get under her bed. 

The voice of their mother came from directly outside the bedroom door now. “Why not, Mabel? Your door was open, now it’s closed. Just answer me, and I won’t think you’re up to something!”

Dipper scrambled to the floor, shoving his clothes ahead of him, barely able to squeeze beneath the bed frame. He was thankful for once that he was so skinny.

Mabel grabbed her clothes from her dresser and threw them to the bed, rifling for her underwear. “I’m just changing my clothes, Mama!!” She kicked at Dipper’s foot which was still visible beneath the end of the bed. The foot swiftly disappeared.

“Well, you haven’t got anything I haven’t seen before!” her mother replied, not being satisfied with the honesty of Mabel’s answer. She turned the handle and opened the door.

Mabel screeched, trying to cover her breasts with one arm and her crotch with her other hand. Her mother looked in uncomfortable surprise at her young daughter’s sweaty, disheveled body, not prepared for this to be quite what she would be barging in on. Mabel leaped on the bed to dive under her covers, the impact of her jump hitting Dipper solidly on his head through the mattress and box spring. He silently winced in pain.

“Mama!! Please get out!!” Mabel screamed in embarrassment.

“What on earth is going on?” called their father from just down the hall.

Mabel turned up the volume even higher. “Stay away, Daddy!!”

“It’s okay, Baby,” their mother told her husband, as she started to think she knew what was going on with their daughter. “I’ll handle this!” she said, entering Mabel’s bedroom and closing the door on him before he could come closer. 

Their father wasn’t finished on the other side of the door. “Mabel, where is Dipper?” Under the bed, Dipper froze even more than he already had been.

Mabel tried to think quick. “He said he got a call from one of his friends. I don’t know where he is!” she cried out.

“All right. I’ll leave you two be.” their father said.

Dipper’s heart leapt to his throat. His cell phone was in his pants pocket, and his pants were behind him somewhere under the bed with him! _And with Mom in the room, I can’t move to find it and turn off the ringer!_ _If Dad calls me, it’s all over!_

“Mama!” Mabel pleaded pitifully, wrapped up to her neck in her bedsheets. “Please … just leave me alone! Just go!”

“Pumpkin,” her mother said, much softer now, sitting on the corner of Mabel’s bed, “don’t worry … I understand … the feelings you must be going through at your age … you want to do things with yourself ...”

“Mama!” Mabel whined again, mortified and trying to get her mother to stop. Dipper tried to control his breathing, knowing that his Mom’s foot was just inches away from his knee.

Their mother was determined to get her point across. “Just know … just know that I’m sorry for waltzing in here without understanding. I think I know better now.” She paused, drew a breath, then continued. “If it makes you feel any better … I was doing the same things that you were just doing when I was your age.”

She had intended to imply that she had masturbated at fourteen: instead, Mabel and Dipper both conjured up the same mental image: their mother as a young teenager, on her back and being rutted by a young version of her brother Steve. “Ewww!!” Mabel blurted out in revulsion, drawing a bemused expression from her mother. Under the bed, Dipper struggled not to cough in disgust.

“All right, all right, I guess I’ve embarrassed you enough!” her mother told her with an understanding smile. “I’ll make sure that your father never speaks of this!” She got to her feet and started toward the door, then stopped. “I’m sorry for not bringing up any of these things before this. If you change your mind and want to talk, I’ll be here. I love you, Pumpkin.”

“Love you, too,” Mabel squeaked back, not budging an inch from under the sheets. Their mother left the room, closing the door shut behind her. They could hear their father’s questioning tone, then both voices faded as their parents walked away down the hallway towards the living room.

Dipper carefully extracted himself from under Mabel’s bed, reaching back to pull out his clothes with him. He began fishing in the pocket of his pants for his phone.

“Oh my God! Dipper, that was  _ so  _ embarrassing!” Mabel said quietly, but excitedly. “Even if it’s not what she meant, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at Uncle Steve again! Bleaah! I can’t believe how …” Dipper sternly signalled to Mabel to stop talking. Mabel acknowledged him silently. 

Dipper was all business now. He was scared out of his mind, for they were not nearly out of danger, but the short time under the bed had given him time to think about what he needed to do next. Finding the phone, Dipper quickly found the ringer settings and set it to “mute”. After a short exhale of relief, he grabbed his clothes and started pulling them on. He whispered an order to Mabel that she needed to get her clothes on as well.

When they both were fully dressed, Dipper used hushed tones to outline his plan to Mabel. 

"Okay, good job saying I’m out of the house. So if I’m coming back from visiting a friend, let’s say Anthony, I have to come back into the house through the front door, right?” Mabel nodded agreement. “Obviously, now I actually have to get outside. First things first, I have to get out of this room. I'll be seen by Mom or Dad if I go out through your door, so no way around it, the only other way is out your window. There's a screen that has to come off, and I highly doubt you have a set of screwdrivers in your room!" Mabel shook her head. "Didn't think so! So since I can't go get it, you have to go into my room and get my set. It's in the 2nd drawer in my desk, buried under a bunch of crap in the left side of the drawer. I think. I hope. Be careful, I think I might have also stuffed some dirty underwear in that drawer one time a couple of months ago when Mom told me to clean my room.” Mabel's face was slowly contorting in disgust. "Well ... you'll see when you get there! Once you bring that back here, you'll have to help me hold the screen after I unscrew the clips, because we can't let the screen fall down. There's about a seven foot drop to the ground under your window, I hope I can make the jump without making any noise. Or … breaking my leg, for that matter." Mabel was looking at Dipper, trying to determine just how confident he was in this plan. "Then I sneak around the side of the house …” he paused, “... somehow get over the chain link fence, haven't quite figured that out yet ... and then out to the street without being seen from the living room window. Or maybe I get out to the street through the Zeidenbergs’ yard. Whatever, if I make it that far, then I can just turn around as if I'm just coming back from visiting Anthony!" Dipper waited for Mabel to agree to the logic of the plan. "So, c'mon, go get my screwdriver set!" he whispered impatiently.

Mabel regarded Dipper blankly for several seconds. "Or," she suggested quietly, "I make up a reason to get Mama and Daddy out into the back yard through the patio doors, then you just walk out the front door and back in again."

Dipper was silent for several more seconds. "Or we could do that, yes," he whispered in a deadpan tone. 

* * *

Mabel’s plan worked perfectly. It was easy for her to distract their parents with her suggestions for the still-unfinished landscaping work in the backyard. When they closed the sliding door behind them on their way out, Dipper carefully sneaked out of Mabel’s room, through the house to the front entrance and out, locking the door gingerly behind him. He waited a few moments before re-entering normally, trying to act casual. Of course, Mabel and her creative ideas could have kept their parents occupied for an hour, so Dipper’s subterfuge was unnecessary. 

Later in the evening, the adrenaline had stopped pumping, and Dipper signaled that he and Mabel had to talk. This time they went to Dipper’s room. They both had the same math class, so they spread out their algebra homework on his bed to make it look like Dipper was assisting Mabel, in case either parent were to come in. 

“Wow, that was  _ close! _ ” Mabel said with quiet relief. “I’m just, like, all ‘Blargghh’! Kind of like some of our old adventures last summer, am I right? I was  _ so scared! _ I can’t believe we got away with that!”

Dipper didn’t say anything for several moments. Mabel peered at his face, and couldn’t read his expression. He was just staring down in the direction of their homework. “Dipper?” Mabel prompted gently.

“That’s just it, Mabel,” he said quietly. “That  _ was _ close.  _ Too  _ close! I actually can’t believe we got away with it either!”

“Dipper, we’ve  _ always _ managed to get away with it! Think about it! Let’s see … we’ve been shrunk, turned into wood, swapped bodies ...” Mabel paused to shudder at that memory, “battled killer golf balls, defeated a time traveller … heck, we’ve kicked a demon triangle guy out of  _ two _ brains, including yours! We’re still here, aren’t we? Seems we got away with all that!” 

“We didn’t always get away with all that so smoothly, did we? How many times did I come back to the Shack with a black eye, or worse? How many scrapes and band-aids did you get? We got away with all that only because Grunkle Stan chose to look the other way.” Dipper looked up to his sister’s face. “You know he wasn’t stupid, Mabel! He knew that there was crazy stuff was going on! Don’t forget, last month he saw right through …  _ us _ … almost immediately.”

“But Daddy and Mama  _ haven’t _ , Dip! We’re doing a better job of keeping it hidden than we were up north.” Mabel smirked confidently. “Time to face it, Bro! We’re just  _ good! _ ”

“Or maybe we’ve just been  _ lucky _ .  _ Really _ lucky!” Dipper replied, looking back down, his voice softening. “... And luck has a way of running out.” He paused, trying to find the right words to continue. Mabel was starting to be uncomfortable with where this conversation was going. 

“Mabel … one of these times, with some stupid little thing, we’re going to slip up, something that will be noticed.” Dipper straightened, looking intently at Mabel. “When that happens, what do you think Mom and Dad are going to do? To us?” He waited, daring Mabel to try to put a positive spin on such a scenario. She was unable to answer him. 

"We’ve already talked about this,” Dipper continued. “You know they won’t stand for it! They won’t let us continue to be together! They won’t even let us  _ live  _ together! One of us, maybe both, will be sent away to boarding schools!”

Mabel feebly tried to argue. “They love us, Dipper! They couldn’t do that to us!”

“I know they love us, Mabel. In fact, that’s  _ exactly  _ why they  _ would  _ separate us! They would say it’s for our own good! And if anyone at church were to find out the reason for it, they would  _ agree _ with them!” Dipper paused again, longer this time. His mouth trembled, and he struggled to draw another breath. “We  _ can’t  _ let them do that to us, Mabel! We can’t let that happen! I …” his voice broke, “...  _ I _ can’t let that happen!” he finished wretchedly.

Mabel sensed where this was leading. Within her, she had built a shield of denial to protect herself from this possibility. She had started constructing it the night Grunkle Stan had revealed he knew about them. She built it stronger when she arrived home in Piedmont. Now, she felt the shield starting to crack. 

_ No way, he is not going to tell me what I think he’s going to tell me! _ she thought to herself.  _ There is no way in heck that Dipper will say this! _

But aloud, she couldn’t stop herself. “So … what are you saying?” she asked shakily.

Dipper knew that it  _ had  _ to be said. He hated it, more than anything in the world, but he saw no choice. The risks they faced were too great. He forced himself to look Mabel directly into her eyes. It was one of the most difficult things he had ever done. 

“... I’m … saying we … we can’t do this anymore …” he managed haltingly. 

Mabel's shield shattered into a million pieces. 

_ No! No!  _ Mabel wailed in her head. Her face conveyed to Dipper her despair and heartbreak.  _ It’s over? No, it can’t be over! _ She was numbly aware of Dipper taking her hands and holding them, neither having any words to say.

Grief quickly gave way to confusion for Mabel. She focused on Dipper’s face. _It’s_ _over_ , Mabel thought to herself. _Dipper just … just ended our relationship together! He just broke up with me! Even though we need each other. Even though we love each other! How … how could he do this? How could he do this … to_ us _? To_ me _?_

Mabel’s eyes narrowed slightly, still focused on her brother.

Dipper saw the shift in her expression. “I  _ want _ to be with you, Mabel. You know that!” he told her softly.

Mabel said nothing, she just continued appraising her brother with growing intensity. Her features seemed to grow hard, her face of confusion slowly transforming into a glare. After a moment, she pulled her hands free and silently started gathering up her homework papers off Dipper’s bed. 

“Mabel, please … don’t be angry!” Dipper pleaded. He made a fist and presented it to Mabel. She stopped, looked at it and then Dipper’s face for an instant. 

Then her eyes flashed, and she forcefully picked up the last paper and her math textbook. 

_ No!! _ Dipper thought despairingly.  _ No, I knew this would hurt her, but not this much! _ “Wait! Please, wait a second!” he implored.

With her schoolwork in her arms, Mabel quickly rose and strode to the door, opening it with a yank.

Dipper didn’t care that the door was open. At that moment, his parents could have been standing right there in the hallway, and it wouldn’t have mattered to him. “I love you, Mabel!” he desperately called out. 

She didn’t slow down in the slightest, crossing to her room and loudly slamming her door.

From the far end of the house, their parents called out to see what was going on, after hearing a door bang shut. They got no response, and found two closed bedroom doors, with an uncommunicative teenager behind each one. 

* * *


	7. Chapter 7

* * *

**_“Please?” he pleaded, “Can't we just talk for a second?”_ **

**_For several moments, there was still only silence, and no eye contact. Then finally, came a black stare and a low voice that sounded almost like a growl._ **

**_“Get … the FUCK … out of my way!”_ **

**_She was unrecognizable to him. He never imagined she was even capable of such a cruel, ugly tone, or a look of such pure loathing. He actually stepped back unwittingly from her and away from the door. She took the opportunity to roughly elbow past him out into the hallway, then to the bathroom where she quickly entered and locked herself in._ **

* * *

**Thursday**

Getting ready for school was a tense affair in the Pines home. Following the unexplained door slamming and silent sulking of the twins the previous night, neither parent was successful in determining what had happened between Dipper and Mabel. The twins weren’t willing to explain to their folks about whatever it was, and it seemed they weren’t communicating to each other at all.

Their parents knew only that Dipper must have said or done something hurtful to Mabel, because he was acting sad and remorseful, while Mabel was obviously hurt and angry. They were disheartened to see Dipper be so down again. Doubly so this week, since this time it apparently involved his sister, normally his best friend, instead of some trouble at school. And as for Mabel, they were concerned for her, and were unaccustomed to seeing her in anything less than a chipper mood. They essentially had no idea how to cheer her up, since it generally seemed she never required it.

Their father had to leave for work shortly after Dipper appeared in the kitchen. Mabel came out soon after. Dipper half-heartedly tried to engage his sister in conversation, but she wouldn’t acknowledge him: she acted as though he wasn’t there at all. By the time her breakfast was eaten and her books were ready, Mabel quickly gathered her things and walked out the door after saying a curt goodbye to her mother, and pointedly ignoring her brother. Sandra was just walking up the street, and Mabel led them toward school without waiting for anyone to catch up.

Their mother watched Mabel walk away, then turned to a despondent Dipper, who was slowly pulling on his backpack. She crossed her arms and confronted her son. “What in the world happened last night?” she asked him directly. “I’ve  _ never  _ seen her so upset at you in my life!”

Dipper was so distraught over Mabel’s furious reaction to his decision the previous night that they had to stop their romantic activities together, that he had not been able to come up with any kind of cover story to tell his mother. 

“I don’t know, Mom. I … I can’t really tell you,” he said softly.

“That is  _ not  _ acceptable, young man!” she demanded. “Something serious happened last night between the two of you, and you will tell me what it was!” Dipper stood before her, immobile, blankly looking at the door that Mabel had just used to leave the house. His mother raised her voice. “Right now!”

Dipper looked at his mother for an instant, then avoided her eyes. His lips moved, but nothing came out. Finally, he said, “I’m sorry, Mom … but … I can’t. You have to trust me … that if I tell you ... it'll just make everything worse,” he mumbled. His mother gaped at his cryptic non-answer. Dipper rubbed his hand roughly through his hair. “Can I just go to school now, Mom? I’m gonna be late.”

She was unprepared to deal with Dipper blatantly disregarding her direct question, and even more unprepared for how earnest he was while doing so. Mutely, she nodded her head. Taking his cap from its hook and pulling it low over his forehead, Dipper headed out the door with a quiet “Bye.”

* * *

It only took a fraction of a second for Mabel’s bad mood to be spotted, before she even reached the end of her driveway. Sandra thought Mabel must have a case of the morning grumpy-grumps. 

“Hey, girlfriend! What’s up?” she asked in an upbeat tone, trying to quickly coax a smile out of Mabel. The scowl continued, though, as Mabel reached the sidewalk, and Sandra grew concerned. “O … kay … what’s wrong?”

_ What’s wrong?  _ thought Mabel to herself.  _ What’s WRONG?? Try every-bleepity-bloopity-mother-.... _ frickin’ _ -thing! I hate everything! I hate my clothes. I hate my room. I hate my parents. I hate school. Yeah, girlfriend, I even hate you and every last blond hair on your head! But all those things, I can at least tolerate. And I’ll need them all if I ever get over feeling like this.  _

_ But there is  _ one _ thing I hate, that I can hate without reservation! _

“Dipper!” she growled, gesturing Sandra to start walking and not wait for her brother. “He’s the biggest buttface … no, the biggest  _ asshole _ … ever!”

“What?” Sandra was shocked by Mabel’s demeanor and language, and specifically the news that her brother, her BFF, was the cause of her anger. “Oh my god! What did he do?”

Mabel marched in silence, now realizing too late that she couldn’t actually tell Sandra, or anybody else for that matter,  _ why _ she was so angry at everything, or at Dipper in particular.  _ What am I gonna say? That my brother broke up with me? Um, no!  _ So she clammed up, hoping Sandra would just drop the subject.

“Mabel? What happened with you and Dipper?” Sandra prodded as she tried to keep pace with Mabel’s powerwalk.

“It’s nothing!” Mabel snapped. “Just forget about it! I don’t want to talk about it!”

Sandra nervously fell into step beside Mabel, and held her tongue against the questions and concerns she had for her friend. She tried to get Mabel interested in talking about what part she’d like to be assigned to play in the school musical, as the final casting would be posted the next day on Friday. But it was not happening: Mabel was being a Grade “A” grouch. The girls walked in uncomfortable silence to the next corner, where Anthony was just arriving to join them. 

As he and Sandra started to resume their discussion from the previous day, Mabel huffed in irritation and sped up her walk to school.

* * *

Dipper and Ezra sat at a table in the cafeteria during lunch hour, already halfway through eating, when Ezra noticed Anthony’s tall frame weaving through the tables towards them. They hadn’t had a chance to talk as a group together all morning. 

Ezra was immediately thankful for Anthony’s arrival, as Dipper had been a less than adequate conversationalist thus far. He hadn’t been able to figure out what caused this week’s new sour mood in his friend any better than last week’s episode. 

With their "nerd club" together, Ezra immediately steered the discussion towards their idea for organizing a group for role-playing games. “We should get together right after school today, try to figure out who to ask to reserve a room, and what time, and …”

“Uhh …” Anthony interrupted. “After school today’s no good, sorry. I’m … kinda busy.” 

Dipper and Ezra looked at Anthony strangely. He  _ never _ did anything after school but go home and play video games. Ezra pushed him. “So … what’s up?”

Anthony managed to look embarrassed and cocky at the same time, the color of his cocoa skin deepening even more on his cheeks. “Umm … you guys know Sandra, right?” The other boys nodded with raised eyebrows. “Well … we were talking yesterday on the way home and then on the phone last night, and again this morning on the way to school, and …”

“Wait wait, what? Just a minute, back up!” Ezra interrupted him. Dipper had seen Anthony and Sandra talking on the way home from school the day before, but was only marginally less surprised. “You and Sandra … you’re …” He motioned with pudgy fingers to get Anthony to finish his sentence.

“We’re not anything! … At least, not yet,” he finished a bit shyly. “Anyways, she’s talked me into …” he looked around self-consciously before continuing rapidly, “... auditioning after classes today for one of the guys’ parts in the school musical.”

Ezra snorted loudly in amusement, and Dipper forgot about being in a funk at this news. “Dude,  _ you _ want to be in ‘Hairspray’?” Dipper said incredulously. “You know there’s  _ singing _ involved, right? And  _ dancing _ ?”

“Hey, it  _ might _ be fun,” he replied defensively. “Maybe you guys should try out, too … you know, give a guy some moral support, huh?”

Ezra blew air through his lips. “Ah, yeah no!” he said emphatically. “Man, I am  _ so  _ not on board with you on this!”

“Who knows, Ezzy, it might help you to meet a girl, too!” prompting another snort from Ezra. Anthony turned to Dipper. “What do  _ you _ say, Dip? If you auditioned, I’d like to try to measure the frequency of the squeal from Mabel! You’d blow her mind!”

Dipper’s face fell slightly. Glancing down quickly, he replied, “Nah, I don’t think so. Sorry, man.” 

Ezra watched Dipper closely, then turned to look at the table where Mabel sat in the cafeteria. He noticed that Dipper’s sister was sitting on the opposite side of the table than usual, now facing away from her brother. 

* * *

**_Wide-eyed and open-mouthed, he stood frozen to the spot, immobile beside her bedroom door. His hands were shaking. Unpleasant tingling sensations were shooting through his torso, and down the lengths of his arms and legs. A burning ache was lodged deep inside his chest, with an intensity like nothing he could have imagined before._ **

**_Several seconds passed, and finally his nervous system ordered his lungs to involuntarily take a painfully deep breath. The sudden gasp spurred him. He had told himself that he was going to use this time to get her to talk to him, to listen to him. Surely, this was part of the plan, wasn't it?  He had to try again!_ **

* * *

**Friday**

Mabel's mood had not improved with the start of another new day. 

_ Ugh, look at all this crap!  _ she thought to herself as she pushed through her clothes.  _ Couldn't I have knit any sweaters that aren't so frickin'  _ cute _? I don't want cute! _

She slammed her dresser drawer closed. Every one of her sweaters reminded her of whatever happy and silly inspiration had taken hold of her when she had knit each one. Memories that were certainly not conducive to maintaining a miserable demeanor, which was exactly the kind of demeanor she wanted to maintain. She seized her bra and strapped it on, pulled over her plainest long-sleeved t-shirt, and grabbed her backpack to face certain inquisition from her family in the kitchen for breakfast.

Dipper was already at the table eating from a cereal bowl, and looked up meekly as she entered. Her mother watched her with concern as she briskly headed for the cupboard. Silence filled the room as Mabel retrieved a bowl and spoon, cereal box, and milk, then roughly sat down at the opposite end of the table from her brother.

“Pumpkin, don’t you think it’s time for you to tell me what’s bothering you?” her mother asked gently.

_ Oh, of course!  _ she said to herself.  _ Telling that story will be  _ great  _ for the old family dynamics! “Okay Mama! Here’s what’s bothering me! Me and Sir Dipshit over there figured out we were in love with each other a few weeks ago on our birthday, and we’d been bumpin' uglies just as often as we could ever since! But he broke up with me because he’s all scared you and Daddy would royally freak if you found out, and then you’d split up our family! But, hey! We’re all good now, right?!?” Yeah, mother dear,that’ll go over  _ real _ well! _

Aloud, she primly said, “There’s nothing wrong, Mama, just like I told you last night,” staring at her bowl as she poured the milk. “Everything’s hunky-dory! Couldn’t be better!” She set the milk down with enough force to cause some to splash out onto the table. “Fan … Tastic!” Then she started eating, practically daring her mother to call her out on her bitchy behavior. 

Dipper didn’t give his mother a chance to respond. “Mabel, I’m sorry!" he pleaded. "I get you’re mad, but don’t take it out on Mom. She didn’t do anything!”

Mabel kept eating while staring menacingly at her bowl.  _ Wow! Just wow! Dipper’s defending Mama and Daddy, taking their side! He  _ never  _ takes my side! _ The irrationality of her thoughts didn’t occur to her: she simply grasped onto whatever she could to internally justify her adolescent fury.  _ He’s got hella nerve, poking his head in my door last night. Still trying to tell me he loves me! Yeah, right, Brocifer. Puke-a-rama!  _

Meanwhile, their mother was speaking. “Alright then, Mabel, if you’re not interested in talking …” and she turned her attention to her son. “Dipper, what are you apologizing to her for? What exactly happened the other night?” Dipper’s complexion paled to a sickly shade, and he couldn’t look up to meet his mother’s gaze. “Well?” she prompted impatiently, leaning over him. Dipper didn’t move, joining Mabel in providing only silence. She raised her voice in exasperation, turning back toward Mabel. “Would one of you  _ please _ tell me what’s going  _ on  _ here?”

In Mabel’s mind, all of this was Dipper’s fault.  _ There’s no way I’m sitting here and getting yelled at for any of this! HE broke up with me, let HIM handle this!  _ Coldly, Mabel dropped her spoon into her nearly-full bowl, roughly picked up her backpack and lunch, and stalked straight out of the house without saying another word, paying no attention to her mother’s increasingly frustrated demands that she remain where she was. With no sign of Sandra on the street, she trudged towards school under her own personal black cloud.

Dipper could see Mabel stomp up the street through the front window. He was overwhelmed by a sick feeling in his gut; a combination of stress, lack of sleep, and heartache, which was made all the worse as his mother started questioning him again. Her anger was increasing rapidly over her inability to get her children to talk to her.

His stomach suddenly lurched, and he tasted his mouth starting to water rapidly. Recognizing the signs of urgent nausea, Dipper leapt to his feet and rushed to the bathroom. He just managed to lock the door behind him and reach the toilet before he violently threw up his breakfast. 

After the third wave of vomit finished and his stomach had nothing left to expel, Dipper sat back on the floor, panting and exhausted. He was vaguely aware of his mother’s calls through the bathroom door, now sounding much more concerned than angry. 

When he emerged from the bathroom, Dipper felt like death warmed over. Apparently he didn't look any better, as his mother now advised he should stay home from school, a suggestion he accepted without hesitation. Dipper dragged himself to his room and collapsed into his bed, turning over to stare at the wall in blank dejection. 

* * *

By lunch hour, Mabel still had seen no sign of Dipper. Not that she'd admit to herself that she was looking for him, of course. 

She bristled as she recalled how she'd snapped at Dipper's friend Ezra between periods in the morning. He'd approached her and asked her if everything was okay, and she accused Ezra of being sent by Dipper to talk to her. It had been her brother's stout friend who had informed her (in a now somewhat less friendly manner) that Dipper had not come to classes at all that morning, and shouldn’t his sister have known that?

Mabel exhaled heavily as she approached the table in the cafeteria that she and her friends sat at, forcing herself to try to be more like her old persona.  _ Yeah, I'm pissed about Dipper,  _ she groused to herself,  _ but I suppose school's not so bad, especially since Dipper's not here! This isn't like my family: my friends have no reason to forgive me in the future, so I’d better be a little nicer to them. _

All her friends were already at their table, where Aisha's tight dreadlocks were at the centre of a bubble of excitement. Their heads were together as Mabel approached and sat down. She was immediately aware that all conversation stopped, and although everyone knew she had sat down, no one was looking at her. Jordan was fidgeting nervously, while Juanita looked down blankly.

"Ha ha! Hello?" she said with an obviously plastic smile, followed by a long pause as she received only a couple of subdued replies. She bravely tried to keep a grin on her face. "What the hey-hey, girls? What's goin' on?"

The other girls looked at each other nervously, and Sandra reluctantly turned to Mabel. "Uh ... so I guess you didn't see the posting in front of the auditorium for the Drama Club ... huh?" she finished softly.

Mabel's heart sank, as she immediately determined what the posting was. The casting was complete for the production of "Hairspray".  _ And I didn't get any of the major parts. For the Drama Club! I’m the  _ definition  _ of drama: how could they not cast me for a good role! _

Though her posture had slumped and her face had fallen, she tried to twist one side of her mouth up and look up to her friends. "Ah well, it'll still be fun, whatever any of us are asked to do in the show, right? Of course I’m not gonna be right for the part of Tracy, I’m not  _ nearly _ fat enough! I mean, the school play is still a super-big production, and ..." She stopped as she saw Sandra's expression became stricken.

"Mabel, I'm so sorry ... it looks like you didn't get cast ... for  _ any  _ role."

Mabel looked disbelievingly back to her friend. Nothing? There was  _ nothing  _ for her in the production?

Jordan spoke up apologetically. "There was a big note at the bottom, thanking everyone who auditioned, but the play calls for a lot of 'racial diversity', and a lot of roles for boys. The vast majority of students who tried out were Caucasian girls, so there just wasn't enough parts for everyone, even for ensemble roles." Mabel absorbed this as her other friends quietly offered apologies as well.

What Mabel  _ didn't  _ hear from any of her friends was any comforting statements of solidarity, about how any of them knew exactly how she felt. And with a sick feeling, she knew why no such statements were coming.

"But all four of you ... you  _ all  _ got cast ... you’re  _ all _ in the play, aren’t you?" she asked quietly, unable to mask the bitterness in her voice.

Mabel barely heard them as they reluctantly confirmed her suspicion. 

_ Great,  _ thought Mabel.  _ I feel so much better now! _

* * *

**_He forced himself to the bathroom door and knocked loudly. “C’mon!” he called out, silently begging his voice not to falter. "Please … you gotta talk to me!” He paused for moment, hoping that she might respond. “I know this sucks, because it sucks just as much for me as it does for you! You think I'm not hurting, too?"_ **

**_He received only silence for a reply._ **

* * *

**Saturday**

The twins' parents still had no explanation for the issues between their children, as the one-sided hostilities entered its third day. They had been trying to get to the bottom of the problem, but Dipper and Mabel remained stubbornly silent, neither one willing to open up on the cause of the tension. 

Mabel only grew more angry when her father had suggested the night before that she should speak to her brother, and Dipper at least was not physically ill as long his mother was not interrogating him on what happened Wednesday evening. Their kids were unhappy, which by itself concerned their parents, but they had to admit that they had no evidence to believe that there was anything truly serious to worry about behind the squabble. They both remembered their own teenage years, and how emotional things could be at that age. Little things can blow up easily, and seem extremely important to an adolescent mind. 

And truth be told, maybe now this really wasn't such unusual behavior for Dipper and Mabel. After two-and-a-half months away from home, they had to accept that perhaps their children just weren't as good pals to each other that they had been in the spring. They'd had to deal with each other all summer long, and the kids had mentioned that their 2nd summer in Oregon hadn't been nearly as fun as the one previous. Perhaps the twins had been at each other's throats off and on for awhile now, and by trying to force them to work things out, maybe they'd only been making things worse? Dipper had said as much on Thursday. 

So the decision was made that they would hold off on forcing the issue, at least for one more day. Instead, the twins were to be put to work. The "men" of the house resumed the landscaping project in the backyard, while their mother and Mabel started in on cleaning out the basement. 

The weather was cooler for outside work than it was the previous weekend, and that was a good thing for Dipper because his father demanded more from him this time. In order to complete the job before a low-pressure front moved in the next day (probably bringing rain), they had a lot of hard, physical work to complete. They needed to complete construction of a retaining wall, and then roll out new sod that had just been delivered. Once again, Dipper worked diligently, though any enthusiasm was notably absent. 

Inside the house, Mabel's quiet fuming did not let up. While she was more obedient about following her mother's instructions than the previous morning (a severe warning from her father had taken care of that), nothing was going to make her  _ like  _ the chores, or force her to pretend that she did. Mabel could not keep herself from getting snippy, which only caused her mother to start snappng back at her.

While the family was eating a tense lunch, the parents briefly left for their bedroom to talk privately about their children's behavior that morning. With just the twins at the table, no words were spoken. Dipper felt Mabel's anger, but still kept glancing up to peer in her direction, hoping for a softening of her demeanor. He managed to catch her eye once, but her expression left him with no doubt that her attitude toward him hadn't softened at all. Dipper elected to keep his words to himself.

Mabel stewed in bottled-up fury. Her pressure-cooker mood threatened to explode at any time, but she kept it contained. If she was honest with herself, she would have been forced to admit that she didn't know what Dipper could do or say that would make things better. Even if he took it all back, so that their secret affair could continue despite the risk, she knew it would not reverse her anger. Part of her was simply itching to just lash out, but she had no justification since Dipper wasn't doing anything to provoke her. 

The silence was unbearable for both of the twins. 

* * *

The work was finally completed in early evening. Mabel and her mother finished hauling the last of the boxes of stuff to give away to charity from the basement, Dipper put away tools in the garage, and his father started the sprinkler to soak the new grass. 

The sun had gone down, and everyone was hungry. All were physically exhausted and emotionally on edge, and no one was really in the mood to prepare dinner. So after everyone had cleaned up, the twins agreed to their mother's suggestion that they order pizza. 

More uncomfortable silence fell between Dipper and Mabel as they sat in the living room waiting for the delivery of the food. Their parents' attempts to spark any kind of conversation fizzled awkwardly. Unable to deal with it any longer, Dipper timidly rose and headed for his room, telling his folks he'd be out when he heard the door. 

Dipper's spirits had never been lower. He felt nothing but despair, as his aching joints and muscles joined forces with his aching heart in making him miserable.  _ How is this supposed to ever get better?  _ he thought dejectedly. 

As he slowly made his way to his room, the small table at the end of the hall caught his eye. On it sat the family's large leather-bound edition of the Holy Bible. Dipper stared at the book for a long moment, then entered his room and flopped onto his bed in resignation. 

* * *

**_“You can’t do this forever!" he called through the bathroom door. "We have to work this out, this is our only chance to talk about it.” He paused, praying for a response. “I love you, and …”_ **

**_“I have NOTHING more to say to you!” she suddenly screamed back through the door. “You keep trying to tell me you LOVE me? Yeah! And how did you show that? By fucking BREAKING UP with me! Go to HELL!!”_ **

**_He felt pain unlike any before, as if her hand was gripping and tearing cruelly at his heart, yanking on it mercilessly._ **

* * *

**Sunday**

It went without saying that Mabel was in no mood to attend worship service at church with their parents. Her mother had poked her head into her bedroom, and had verified that the teenager was, in fact, in just as miserable a mood as she had been the previous few days.

The twins’ father quietly went to have a private discussion with Dipper. He entered his son’s room, and after closing the door behind him, he pulled the desk chair over and lowered himself down, next to where Dipper sat forlornly on the side of his bed. They sat in silence for moment, Dipper intently examining the carpet pattern on the floor between his feet.

“Son, I don’t like it that you … well,  _ neither _ of you ... are telling us what happened that night, but it certainly looks to me like you have some fences to mend with your sister.” Dipper wouldn’t look up to meet his gaze, but gave a small nod. 

“Alright.” He paused, sadly regarding the teen. “Look, I know you, Dip, and I know how much you care about Mabel.” He didn't notice Dipper’s back tense involuntarily. “Whatever happened, I know you didn’t mean to hurt her. Somehow … you’ve just got to make her understand that, right?” He clapped his hand onto Dipper’s shoulder. “Your mother and I will go to church by ourselves this morning. If what the two of you need is some time to hash this out without us old fogeys around, then we’ll give it to you.” Dipper felt the grip on his shoulder tighten. “But I’m  _ not  _ putting up with this anymore after we come back. If this isn’t any better after this afternoon, we  _ will _ be getting this … whatever  _ this  _ is ... out into the open, as a family! We are not letting another day go by without  _ dealing  _ with this. You understand?”

“Yeah ... okay,” Dipper replied quietly, still unable to look at his father directly. His father gave him an affectionate little shake, then released his grip and rose from the chair, turning to leave Dipper’s room and reaching for the door knob.

“Dad?” Dipper said tentatively. His father stopped and turned, as Dipper finally looked up. A long moment passed, as he anxiously rubbed his neck before continuing. "When you’re at church, could you and Mom ... " he paused, clearing his throat and took a deep breath. "Could you ... pr- … pray ... for us, please?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. 

Dipper's father looked at his son, raising an eyebrow at the request. Dipper had never asked for prayer before. He was pleased that faith had some meaning in Dipper's life, but concerned over the fact that this situation had become such a crisis in the teen's mind. He worried over what it was that could possibly have happened between his children that was so serious, that this was the event that had led his self-reliant son to turn to faith as a lifeline. 

After briefly thinking about insisting that entire family go to church after all, instead he nodded. "Absolutely, Dip. We will.” He paused before continuing. “You know, God's got a plan for all of us, we just ... we just have to surrender, and let Him take control, as hard as that is to do sometimes," he said gently, then adding, "Well, we'll see you when we get back, okay?"

Dipper returned the nod. "Thanks, Dad," he said in a small voice. 

* * *

Minutes later, the twins were alone in the house, their parents having driven off to their Sunday morning service. Mabel remained obstinately in her room, while Dipper sat on his bed, staring through his open door at the closed door across the hall. 

He let out a soft, ironic chuckle. Just four days ago, as he and his sister had looked forward to having the house to themselves, how different had things been? How different were things since three weeks ago, since their birthday weekend in Portland? 

_ Has it really only been three weeks?  _ he thought to himself, shaking his head. _ How many times can our lives turn upside down in three weeks? We're just fourteen-year-old kids! Can the two of us really be expected to deal with this all on our own? What the hell have we been doing? How could we ever think we could stay in control of this? _

Control. All of this was completely out of control! Dipper thought about what he'd been taught at Sunday School, and what his father had just told him: giving up control. Just let it all go, and let God do His will. He had never thought about being remotely capable of ever doing that. Dipper always wanted to be in control of every last thing, every moment of every day. 

If God were in control, what would He do about he and Mabel’s relationship together? Was there any future for them together, given that they were siblings and had fallen in love? Did he want to give away control of their future? Could he just submit like that, and would it help? Did he even know  _ how _ to let it go?

He didn't know the answers to any of these questions. But he knew he had to do something differently. He was desperate, and he couldn't keep going this way. 

He bowed his head, and for the first time in his life, said a genuine, heartfelt prayer. 

Then he took a deep breath, wiped the moisture from his eyes, and stood to see what God had in His plan for his relationship with Mabel. 

* * *

Still in her nightgown, Mabel was sprawled out on top of her bed. She’d been awake for hours, but she was unable to focus on anything. She had tried writing in her oft-ignored diary, browsing through her sticker collection, and had even started knitting a plain dark-grey sweater. But nothing brought her solace. Nothing made her feel … better? No, she didn’t  _ want _ to feel better! She didn’t know  _ what _ she wanted! 

What Mabel  _ did _ know was that she just wanted to be left alone.  _ Really, _ she thought,  _ is that so much to ask? Can't a girl just be angry? Why can't everyone just leave me be? _

_ First Mom asking if I wanted to go to church. They say they’ll go without me: fine by me! But then they tell me they left Dipper here alone with me! What the fricking heck? Why would any member of my family, particularly Dipper, think I would want to be left alone with him? _

She was just finishing this thought when she heard a soft knock on her door. "Mabel?" came Dipper's voice. "Can we please talk about this?" 

Mabel rolled her eyes, and turned over on her side away from the door, squinting at her old Sev’ral Timez poster on the wall. She heard Dipper knock and call out twice more. Then her eyes popped open, blazing, as she heard her door being opened behind her.  _ He did NOT just walk into my room uninvited! _

“C’mon Mabes,” Dipper said softly from the threshold of her doorway. “Can’t we try to get past this? Can you give me a chance to explain better?”

The pain of grief Mabel felt flooded through her. She willed herself to keep it bottled up, but she knew the rage would burst from her if she didn’t get away from Dipper. She quickly rose to her feet and advanced to the doorway, staring at the floor. She stopped when Dipper did not move.

“Please, can’t we just talk for a second?” Dipper pleaded.

_ Buddy,  _ thought Mabel,  _ talking is the  _ last _ thing you want to do with me right now! _

“Get … the FUCK … out of my way!” she growled back.

* * *

**_Outside the bathroom door, Dipper rallied the last of his strength. “... Mabel … I’m not leaving this spot until you come out … please, Mabel … you just_ have _to come out and talk to me ... or else ..."_**

**_“Or else WHAT?” Mabel shouted back viciously through the door. “What are you gonna do if I don’t come out and talk to you? Huh? You’ll break in here and RAPE me again?! FUCK you!!” she screamed. “Just … FUCK YOU!!”_ **

**_Dipper’s heart was ripped completely from his chest. Mabel couldn’t have landed a more brutal, devastating blow if she tried._ **

**_Her furious verbal assault continued to stream unabated from within the bathroom. Any faith Dipper felt completely left him. He was utterly defeated, dead and empty, with only overwhelming pain left to let him know he was, in fact, still alive. He wished he could just stop breathing. He wished Mabel could have finished the job and actually killed him. He wished he had the courage to kill himself._ **

**_As he listened to her sporadic invectives continue to be shouted from behind the locked door, he shuffled his way down the hall and past the living room, then out the front door. He didn’t know where he was going to go, or why, or for how long. Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing mattered._ **

* * *


	8. Chapter 8

* * *

“And you have no idea where he went?”

Mabel hugged her knees on the living room couch, trying to contain her seemingly unending supply of tears. “No, Daddy,” she sniffed.

“Well, how long ago did he leave?” her father continued, with growing insistence.

“I don’t know,” she replied miserably. And it was the truth. Mabel had no clue when Dipper had left the house, or where he had gone.

She had stayed locked in the bathroom for at least two hours after screaming at her brother through the door, crying out her frustration and anger. It kept spilling out, wave after wave. She cursed him for breaking her heart, then cursed her parents for forcing him to do what he did to her. Finally she cursed life and God that she had been allowed to fall for Dipper at all, for the unfairness and cruelty that she was forced to experience this hell. She let all her pent up emotions out, until there was none left.

With the pressure released, she sat on the floor and leaned up against the side of the bathtub. She regretfully thought about everything that had happened since she and Dipper were nearly caught by their parents on Wednesday evening, and Dipper’s subsequent determination to end their romantic relations. She’d been so furious, so full of rage, she barely recognized herself as she recalled how she’d acted for the past several days. Towards her parents, towards her friends. And particularly towards Dipper.

Mabel realized that there was one thing that was undeniable: she still loved Dipper, completely and desperately. And she had to admit to herself that Dipper’s decision was probably the safest thing for them to do. It just hurt so much to have to face that fact! And if that was true for her, and if she accepted that Dipper did in fact love her in return, then this must have been just as hard for him! And then on top of that, she’d heaped several days worth of passive-aggressive abuse on him, and finally those awful vindictive accusations earlier that morning. She couldn’t imagine how he must have been feeling.

When she was finally ready to come out, ready to face Dipper and apologize for her behavior, ready to beg for forgiveness, she found the house empty. When she called his cell phone, she heard it ring from in his room: he had left without taking it. As she picked it up, she also found his wallet and house key beside it on his dresser.

Mabel had taken all three items to the living room and put them on the coffee table in front of her, trying to figure out where Dipper had gone, and what it meant that he had left without saying anything to her or taking any necessities. The realization that she could not let him know how sorry she was, was just hitting her when her parents arrived home from church and found her huddled on the couch.

Her father continued his questioning of his distraught daughter. “Dipper wouldn’t just do this! Just  _ leave _ without his keys or wallet? Let alone the phone! What on earth is going  _ on _ here?” Mabel drew a ragged breath, and began sobbing quietly. “What  _ is _ this issue you two are fighting over?”

Mabel’s composure fell apart, and her cries became loud and uncontrolled. Her mother wrapped her arms around her, and admonished her father. “Baby, we can’t force this conversation on her  _ now _ ! We have to find Dipper, and we need her!” She turned to Mabel, shushing her until she had calmed down. “Is there anything at all that you can tell us, anything that he said or anything you saw, that might tell us where he’s gone?”

She just shook her head slowly. “No. He didn’t say anything,” she whimpered. “And I didn’t see or hear him go. He could have left fifteen minutes ago … or two hours ago.” Her breath caught. “I … I don’t know!” she finished pitifully.

Her father pursed his lips in frustration, then sighed. “All right. Mabel, you’ll stay here in case he comes back. Phone the neighbors, see if any of them saw which way he went. And phone all his friends, see if he went to any of their houses.” He looked at his wife. “Honey, you and I will just have to take our cars and start driving around. I’ll go east, you go west. Stop at the libraries, the mall, the parks, stores he likes, wherever. We all keep in touch, and if he doesn’t turn up by nightfall, we call the police. Okay?” He turned and went out the door quickly, headed for his car.

Mabel’s mother paused briefly to kiss Mabel on the head. “He’ll be back here soon, Pumpkin,” she whispered. “Try not to worry. I love you.”

“Love you, too, Mama,” Mabel whispered back. Then her mother was out the door as well, leaving Mabel alone, sick with worry and overwhelmed with guilt. Shakily, she picked up the phone to start making her calls. 

* * *

Dipper shifted his position on the park bench seat, as the circulation to his legs had been lost and his feet were going numb. Not as numb as he felt inside his chest, but at least he felt he could do something about his legs.

He shivered involuntarily. The wind off the water was getting chilly, and he was wearing only jeans and a t-shirt. He stared out, idly watching the latest passenger jet lining up to land at Oakland International, squinting away from the sun that was falling close to the skyline of downtown San Francisco, across the Bay. As the noise of the jet faded, the sounds of sloshing waves and calling birds once again came to the fore.

Dipper hadn’t known where he was going when he left his house hours before. He just needed to leave, away from his sister who hated him.

On automatic pilot, he had walked south out of the suburban city of Piedmont into Oakland, uncaring of destination, unaware of surroundings other than traffic lights, not wanting to stop anywhere. Nearly four hours later, the muscles in his legs had demanded he look for a place to rest. He found that he was in an industrial area, near a sign pointing to the Oyster Bay Regional Shoreline. Following the path on the edge of the former landfill site on San Francisco Bay, he had located one of the few benches in the park and wearily sat down. It had been the perfect place to sulk and wallow in dark contemplation. Few people were out in the park that afternoon to disturb him.

_ Why did I get my hopes up, thinking that God had the answers?  _ he thought dismally.  _ He didn’t help. If anything, He made it worse! I kept pushing Mabel, thinking it was the right thing to do, pushing for her to respond to me. Shit, did she ever respond! _

He passed more time, kicking gravel beneath his shoes, recounting in his head for seemingly the thousandth time the cruel words Mabel had spat from behind the bathroom door. She hated him! She  _ despised _ him! She told him he  _ raped _ her! He never thought he would ever feel such emotions from Mabel. He felt attacked, beaten down, and tortured. It hurt so much that Mabel no longer loved him. Yes, she’d been hurt by his decision to break off the sexual side of their relationship, but they had no choice! He did it  _ because  _ he loved her! He still did! But she hated him. It wasn’t fair!

This was no longer the same kind of self-loathing pain he felt the week previous, he realized.  _ This time, I didn’t do anything to deserve this! _ he thought to himself.  _ I made a hard choice, and was only trying to protect our lives together, so that Mabel and I can remain together. So Mom and Dad can’t separate us. And what did she do? She pushed me away, as hard as she could! Why can’t she ever be grateful? Why is it always me suffering? Why do I  _ always _ sacrifice everything for her? _

Dipper allowed the resentment to fester. He’d never harbored ill will towards his sister before. Sure, they’d bickered over lots of things, like all siblings do, but she had never done anything that  _ really hurt _ like this before. Thoughts of desire and memories of their lovemaking together were pushed to the back of his mind. Feeling bitterness toward Mabel was unfamiliar and uncomfortable, but as the late afternoon went on, he slowly embraced it.

The chill in his bones deepened as another gust of cool wind blew in off the water. Dipper cursed himself.  _ Real smart, genius,  _ he thought,  _ staying out all day, no phone or money, no jacket.  _ He sighed heavily.  _ I wish I could stay out here alone. But I’m hungry and cold, and I suppose Mom and Dad might be worried about where I am, even if Mabel isn’t! _

Rising from the bench and thrusting his hands into his jeans pockets, Dipper grudgingly started the long walk back home as the sun slipped beneath the western horizon.

* * *

The call was made to the police when Dipper had not come home in the evening. When the officers arrived, Mabel tearfully gave them a description of the clothes he had been wearing, while her mother provided a photo and told them of the unique birthmark on his forehead. The family was assured that when the boy was located, they would be notified.

The lights in the Pines home were still on at two in the morning. Mr. Pines was still out, driving around looking for Dipper, while Mabel and her mother were at home waiting by the phone, when the police called. An unidentified boy fitting Dipper’s description had been brought to the Highland Hospital by ambulance. He was unconscious with severe injuries, and was in serious condition.

They called Dipper’s father, and he arrived at the emergency department first. He confirmed that it was his son, as he watched the staff work on him in the ER. He barely recognized Dipper from all the bandages, swelling, and wires and hoses that were attached to him. The teen was being prepped for surgery, and his father was quickly whisked away.

When Mabel and her mother got there, the police told the family what they knew. Dipper had been found in an alley in the neighborhood of Fruitvale, a rough urban area of Oakland south of Piedmont. He had been beaten severely. There were no knife wounds: his attacker or attackers had used punches and kicks only, but that was small consolation. An ER doctor told them that he had at least three broken ribs, a broken collarbone, a partial leg fracture, four lost molars, and a broken jaw and cheekbone. And that was just what they could see: he had a probable concussion, and was in emergency surgery in order to locate the source of internal bleeding.

Like her parents, Mabel was forced to simply do nothing but wait. She felt responsible for Dipper’s injuries, knowing that if she hadn’t been so hard on him, he wouldn’t have been out in the city on his own. Guilt weighed her down, but she also felt determination to make things better.

_ There’s got to some way to fix things up, to get back what we’ve lost, _ she thought to herself in the waiting room.  _ If only I’d done things differently! He needs to pull through this! If … no,  _ when _ … he gets better, there’s going to be nothing that will stop me from showing him I love him. He’ll have to forgive me! I’ll do whatever it takes! To heck with Mama and Daddy! He belongs with me, we love each other! Somehow, I can make this work! _

* * *

Throughout the next day, Mabel kept vigil by Dipper’s bed in the critical care unit. While her parents took turns, Mabel stubbornly refused to leave her twin’s side.

Dipper finally regained consciousness the following evening. He was on a strong dose of pain-killing drugs in his IV. His neck was braced and his head cushioned to keep him immobile, and his jaw was wired shut until he was ready to endure more surgery for his face. He couldn’t speak. As his eyes fluttered open, he groaned, then his eyes darted around in wide-eyed fear until he saw his mother and father move to stand together on the left side of his bed. His worried mother lightly gripped her son’s hand.

“It’s all right, Dipper. You’re in the hospital, but you’re safe now.” Dipper’s eyes relaxed a bit, and he weakly squeezed his mother’s hand, and she and his father both gave him warm smiles.

Mabel leaned over into Dipper’s line of sight from the other side of the bed. “Dip! Hey, Broseph!” she cried shakily. “I’m here too! I’m not going anywhere, either!” She took Dipper’s other hand.

Dipper locked eyes with his sister for a second, then redirected his gaze to the ceiling. His right hand remained limp. Then his eyes lost focus and slowly closed, and he fell back into morphine-induced sleep.

* * *

Two days and facial reconstructive surgery later, Dipper was eventually able to communicate to his family what had happened, mumbling through the new pins and plates in his mouth and cheek.

He recounted how it was evening and completely dark as Dipper was making his way back from the shoreline park towards Piedmont. Initially reluctant, but then eager to get home, the most direct route involved walking through areas of Oakland he realized were a lot more dangerous at night than they were in daylight earlier that day.

He almost made it, and was about an hour’s walk from home when he started being followed by a group of three older boys. He tried to ignore them, but as he approached a narrow side street they suddenly ran to grab him, and dragged him off into the dark alley.

The thugs taunted the skinny, clean-cut suburban kid who wandered into their turf, and demanded everything he had. When he’d desperately explained he had nothing on him at all, they became furious. Two of them held him against a wall by his arms, while the third viciously beat him. He recalled being punched in the face over and over, and being dumped to the ground. Then the kicking started. The last thing he remembered was the unbelievable pain caused a direct kick to his kidney.

His father asked him why he left the house and walked so far in the first place. Mabel shifted uncomfortably in her chair, and Dipper paused before saying that he and Mabel tried working out their disagreement, but he got frustrated and had to walk away. Mabel pleaded to her parents to let Dipper rest, and besides, she assured them that she wasn’t mad anymore, and she promised never to let things get that ugly again. Dipper gave a slight nod in agreement, and their father reluctantly allowed the subject to drop until their lives could return to normal.

When neither of their folks were watching, Mabel threw a big, exaggerated wink at Dipper, along with a quick smile. Dipper responded by exhaling sharply and rolling his eyes. Mabel managed to keep the smile on her face.

* * *

Over the next two weeks, Dipper’s physical condition slowly improved, though he remained in the hospital. The damage to the kidney had been successfully repaired in surgery, stopping the internal bleeding, but it was still very sore and tender. His leg was in a cast and his torso was taped to hold his ribs in place. His mouth was feeling well enough for some real food. The missing teeth were gone, so he would be chewing on the right side of his mouth from then on, but otherwise his bones and organs were on the mend.

But his head was another story. Dipper was frustratingly aware that his mental recovery was progressing very slowly, if at all. The concussion gave him terrible headaches. Reading made him dizzy, and he couldn’t stand bright light. The meds he was on softened the edge off the pain in his head and torso, but also dulled his thoughts: he couldn’t concentrate. The neurologist had explained that every concussion was unique, and it was impossible to accurately predict how long the symptoms would persist. She also reluctantly admitted that in some cases, the symptoms never go away. There was nothing to do but wait for Dipper’s brain to heal itself.

Mabel had brought homework to the hospital from school, but Dipper could barely process any of it. School had always been easy for Dipper. Now he stewed over his inability to do any of his work, knowing that before he could have finished it in no time. With each passing day, he felt more and more inadequate.

It was during one of her homework tutoring sessions after school that Mabel and Dipper finally found themselves alone in his room, as their mother had left for the hospital cafeteria for something to eat, and the other bed in the room had just been temporarily vacated. Mabel set the homework aside and grasped Dipper’s hand.

“Dipper, I’m super sorry for everything that’s happened!” she pleaded quietly. “I didn’t mean all those cray-cray things I said back at the house! I was just all … stupid. You know that, right?” She paused as Dipper looked at her. “Can you ever forgive me? Please, pretty please?” 

He didn’t answer immediately, shifting his eyes to and from Mabel’s face. “Yeah, Mabel. We’re okay, I guess,” he mumbled. “I just can’t deal with … you know,  _ us _ … right now.”

Mabel grasped his hand tighter. “I understand,” she told him sweetly, trying to hold his gaze. “We’ll deal with this later. We’ll figure out how to be  _ together, _ ” pantomiming air quotes, “again real soon, I promise! And I’ll make it  _ alllllllll _ up to you!” she whispered with a naughty grin.

Dipper looked at his sister with naked astonishment. He pulled back his hand and shook his head as much as his neck brace would allow.

“What … what are you thinking?” he managed to say slowly. “No … No, we can’t do any of that! How could that  _ possibly _ happen, Mabel?” Dipper’s voice gained strength with every word. “Your whole …  _ angry _ thing … was about me already  _ telling you _ that we had to stop all of that before someone discovers us!”

Mabel shrank from Dipper, almost fearful of his tone, but he raised his voice even more. “And now on top of that, here I am, a useless, special-needs, learning-impaired  _ idiot _ , who can’t read or tolerate looking out a window! Do you know how that  _ feels _ ?” Mabel’s hand went to her mouth as Dipper’s frustration continued to spew out ever faster. “And a  _ cripple _ , besides, who can’t walk or even wipe his own  _ ass! _ Do you know how  _ that _ feels?!”

Her determination to find a way to repair their love affair was dissolving rapidly. Her heart desperately tried to hang on to a thread of hope that everything would be fine.

“So  _ where  _ and  _ when  _ do you actually think we’re going to have an opportunity to  _ fuck _ each other, Mabel?!” Dipper growled bitterly.

Everything crumbled down inside of Mabel, collapsing into a horrible, worthless pile in her gut. Dipper had reduced their most beautiful times together to an ugly, crude, and shameful level.

Their mother chose that exact moment to re-enter the hospital room. “Hey, you two! How’s the schoolwork coming along? Making any progress, Dipper?”

Dipper slumped back into his bed. “Not really, Mom. I … I can’t concentrate. I’m not really feeling up to doing any more right now.”

“Me neither,” Mabel echoed quietly. She turned away from her mother as she gathered up the books and papers. 

“That’s all right, guys,” their mother said. “Pumpkin, why don’t you take your turn going down to get something to eat?” She was temporarily oblivious to Mabel’s downturned face. ”No hurry, visiting hours run until eight tonight.”

“No hurry. Got it,” Mabel replied, opening the door to the room. She looked back at Dipper, and caught his attention as he looked at her.

In an instant, they silently communicated to one another. 

Mabel’s pained expression let Dipper know that she was sincerely sorry. She didn’t want to frustrate or belittle him. Mabel just wanted to make Dipper happy with her love. 

Dipper’s face had softened, his eyes remorseful, offering silent apology. He knew he was frustrated and went too far, and he desperately wanted to be able to be with her, too. But there was just  _ no way  _ for them to proceed that way in their family, not as a boy in girl in love. 

Their mother noticed Dipper staring at the door, and turned to look at her daughter. Mabel spun and slipped out before her mother could see her face. She headed toward the cafeteria, but instead found a stairwell where she was able to sit alone. She held her face in her hands, but there were no tears. Only an intense ache that radiated from everywhere.  _ Isn’t there any way for the hurting to just … stop?  _ she wondered miserably to herself.

Back in the hospital room, Dipper closed his eyes as his mother tried to engage him in conversation. After five minutes, he asked his mother to please let him rest, and could she go the visitor lounge for awhile? He held it together for another thirty seconds after she left. No one heard the quiet cries that came from the room for the next half hour.

The twins were trapped, together but apart. The pain was unspeakable.

* * *


	9. Chapter 9

* * *

Dipper was released from hospital in the second week of October, after nearly a month of recovery. His ribs and collarbone were healed enough to no longer require any bracing, but they still felt tender. His leg was still in a cast, so crutches were a necessity. Surprisingly, his face appeared almost completely healed: Dipper was actually impressed that there was practically no outward sign of the beating he had taken, only some residual bruising and swelling that would disappear in time. The doctor had told him he was lucky that his attackers had not hit him on his nose, as broken cartilage rarely heals up looking the same as before.

Post-concussion syndrome, however, was still a major issue. Dipper had continuous headaches, a throbbing that never stopped, repeating in wave upon endless wave. He had been taken off the opiate-based drugs after his major trauma injuries had largely healed, and was now on a drug called Vanatrip, an anti-depressant that supposedly had migraine-relief properties. He shuddered to think that his pain might actually be worse without the drug. He was now able to focus on his school homework, but at a price of a much sharper brand of pain than he had at the hospital. He likened it to having a Klingon pain stick jammed into his head and left on, permanently set to 5 out of 10.

Bright light also exacerbated his headaches. Dipper had taken to wearing large, dark sunglasses virtually all the time. His mother joked that he looked “super-cool” in his shades. He knew he didn’t: the glasses weren’t stylish, and they were chosen so as to block the most outside light possible, but he appreciated that she was trying to make him feel better.

But the constant pain was taxing. He couldn’t return to school because of his problems with light and noise. And he was getting  _ really _ tired of it all.

Dipper’s mother quickly established a routine immediately on his return home. She helped him to the living room couch after breakfast, and he got himself as comfortable as he could. The shades and curtains on the front window were drawn to reduce the sunlight as much as possible. He’d rather have gone back to his room and lay down, but his mother insisted that he had to be dressed and up out of bed.

On most days, there would be a number of visitors from the neighborhood and from their church community. On this morning, it was Mr. and Mrs. Zeidenberg, the neighbors from next door.

After Dipper’s Mom invited them in, the older man waved to Dipper on the couch and called out, “Dipper! Glad to see you home!”

Dipper gave a small smile and raised his hand. “It’s good to  _ be  _ home,” he replied, while thinking,  _ Ow! Please keep your voice down! It’s so loud! _

Mrs. Zeidenberg walked over and sat on the chair beside the couch. “You’re looking good, Dipper! Pretty soon no one will know anything happened!”

“Hope so, Mrs. Zeidenberg” he replied politely.  _ Sure, I’ll look fine on the outside, but I’ll feel like roadkill inside! _

She smiled sweetly. “You must be glad to get out that hospital,” she told him. “Hospital food is so awful, isn’t it?”

_ That`s the thousand and fourteenth time I’ve heard someone say that! _ Dipper shrugged. “It wasn’t so bad.”  _ Hey, mix it up a little, I guess. I’ll go back to agreement when I hear number one thousand and fifteen. _

Mr. Zeidenberg sat down in another chair. “So, Dipper! How’re you feeling?”

_ There it is! My absolute favorite question! “Thanks for asking! You know … I feel like shit! It’s like ten red-hot pokers are being pushed in and out of my head all the time. And your loud, nasally voice just makes it all twice as bad!” _

_ But, of course, I can’t say that. _

“I’m doing okay, I guess,” Dipper answered evenly.

_ Oh, how I want to be honest. But that would be rude, I know. And they’d get all uncomfortable, and think I’m a weak little kid, or whatever! I just wish Mom would quit making me entertain all these people. Like I’m an animal on display! _

He missed his friends. Unlike all these adults, having a good geek-out conversation would have been a welcome distraction from the pain. But Ezra lived on the opposite side of Piedmont, so it wasn’t easy for him to visit. Anthony was close by, but he was really busy with Sandra all the time now. Not only had they both been cast in “Hairspray”, they were pretty much an item now.

So very occasional visits from his two “guy” friends were the best he could hope for. Even in the best of circumstances, it would have been difficult for Dipper to maintain good spirits while struggling to tolerate the agony.

* * *

And these were  _ not _ the best of circumstances. Being forced to watch Mabel, and her reaction to their predicament, made sure of that.

Mabel had the reputation of being an eternal optimist. She was always seeing the bright side of things, always working to get people to get along and have fun. She was happy when everyone else was happy. But her life had been fortunate. She had never in her fourteen years experienced a traumatic loss. No close family members had ever passed away. She had not been through the death of a beloved pet. And she had never dealt with the break-up of an intense relationship. This was her first experience with needing to grieve.

After Dipper’s hospitalization, Mabel had, for a time, fooled herself into believing that the two of them could still rescue their romance together. But after Dipper had emphatically rejected that from being possible, Mabel descended into depression.

In the days after Dipper blew up at her in the hospital room, Mabel’s demeanor changed. The appetite and bizarre eating habits she was legendary for immediately went away, and she ate very little. Her exuberant energy disappeared, and her preference for fun and silliness waned. She didn’t want to visit with her girlfriends, and showed no interest in willingly picking up the slack in doing family chores. Also, she seemed tired all the time, and went to bed earlier than she normally did.

Her mother hoped that Dipper’s return from hospital might give Mabel a jolt of happiness by giving her a chance to dote on her brother, but instead she seemed to be trying to avoid him. On the week Dipper came home, Mabel would disappear into her room soon after walking in the door from school.

Mabel was lying on her bed, headphones in her ears, when her mother peeked in her room. “Pumpkin,” she called, “can you please help Dipper with the work you brought home? I’ve got him sitting at the dining table.”

At the mention of helping Dipper, Mabel slouched. “And what is with the attitude towards your brother, young lady?” her mother scolded. “You promised you were past that! He’s only been home a few days, and you barely emerge to speak to anyone. Come out and help, Mabel. We need you!”

“Yes, Mama,” Mabel droned, dragging herself to her feet. She reluctantly headed toward the dining room.

She timidly pulled out the chair next to where her brother sat at the table. “Hey, Broski,” she said carefully, trying to keep her voice quiet.

“Hey, Mabes,” Dipper replied, looking down through his sunglasses at the homework while cradling his head in his hands.

Neither twin had the ability to smile.

Rather than dwell on their mutual discomfort, they worked though Dipper’s Math and History class work. Dipper picked up the statistics concepts from Math well enough, but the assignment on the American Revolution required a lot of reading, then filling in the answers to a series of questions about the important battles of the war.

Dipper was having trouble recalling what he’d just read about the Siege of Yorktown. As was his habit when he was thinking, Dipper chewed on his pen as he tried to recall the date of the surrender of the British troops, and accidentally cracked the shell of his pen, thankfully avoiding an ink leak. He looked around on the table for a replacement pen. Seeing Mabel’s, he reached out in front of her to retrieve it.

Mabel saw that Dipper had chewed another pen to death, and was looking around to steal yet another one from her. Hers was right in front of her, so she decided to just hand it over and went to grab it.

Her hand got there a split second before his. Dipper’s palm landed on the back of Mabel’s hand.

The twins froze. Mabel’s breath caught in her chest: she turned her head and apprehensively peered sideways to her brother. Dipper swallowed. His expression was unreadable behind the glasses.

Then, slowly, Dipper began squeezing her hand, interlacing his fingers into hers. His lips parted as he unsteadily took a breath. His head turned slightly towards her.

Mabel’s eyes immediately became wet, and she let out her breath with a shudder. She felt Dipper’s sweaty palm grip the back of her hand, which she opened up as his fingers curled around hers, and she squeezed back. She tried in vain to see his eyes through the glasses, to make a connection with him again.

Then he yanked his hand back quickly as their mother whisked in from the kitchen. “Supper’s close to ready. You guys clear off the table in about ten minutes, all right?” They both nodded, Dipper adding a simple “OK”, and their mother returned to the kitchen.

An awkward silence followed. Both were staring straight ahead, neither one of them moving. Then Dipper whispered, “We … can’t do that again, Mabel.”

“I know,” Mabel replied in a barely audible breath.

There was another pause, then Dipper looked down and murmured “I’m sorry.”

Mabel turned away and put the pen down in front of him. “Here.” Her voice broke into a high-pitched squeak.

“Thanks,” he muttered in reply. He picked up the pen and continued his task of answering questions on the assignment.

_ It’s hopeless _ , Mabel despaired to herself.  _ It’s over! We’re never going to be what we were, ever again! Dipper’s  _ never _ going to let me back in. So that’s it! No more fun. No more closeness. No more … love! _

_ And yet … here he is, right beside me! A constant reminder of what we were. What’s every morning at breakfast going to be like? “Hey Bro-bro, good morning! Pass the milk, will ya? Sure, here’s the jam for your toast. You ready for that math test? Say, remember when we were super-bonkers head-over-heels in love with each other? … When everything was so great, and … perfect … for about a couple of weeks or so? Yeah … good times … huh? …” _

Mabel turned back to Dipper, who was trying to complete a paragraph on Cornwallis’ surrender to Washington. He sensed Mabel watching him, and his pen stopped. He bit his bottom lip and his chest trembled slightly. But he wouldn’t look up and over to her.

She couldn’t stay there any longer. Wordlessly, Mabel got up from the table, managing to stifle a sob. She made her way back towards her room, telling her mother she wasn’t hungry as she passed the kitchen.

* * *

It was when a phone call came from the school that Mabel’s parents knew there was something seriously wrong.

The principal of the school informed her mother that there had been reports by three teachers of Mabel’s disturbing behavior traits and lowered quality of her work. She was neglecting to complete homework assignments. She had forgotten to complete work in a group project and cost her team marks. And (most concerning to her parents) she appeared at all times disinterested in doing a good job. None of this was close to normal for their daughter, so an appointment was made for Mabel to see the Pines family’s doctor.

Mabel’s father had taken time off work to take her to the doctor’s appointment. The physician’s first recommendation was that Mabel should have a chance to see a therapist, a professional who could help her through pain of whatever was bothering her. Unfortunately, such therapy was not covered under Mr. Pines’ benefits package at work. There were also hospital fees that had been beyond the plan’s coverage. Combined with his wife’s complete sacrifice of her income over the last month, and the ill-timed backyard renovation, there simply was no money left for new bills.

Instead, the doctor prescribed Prozac for Mabel’s condition. A common antidepressant, it is given to countless teenagers to combat major depressive disorders. The doctor talked to Mabel, and she explained to her how the drug needed to be taken as prescribed, and what changes she should expect to see in herself and her emotions.

Work-related email continued to fly through Mabel’s father’s phone as the doctor explained how the drug works. He was mentally distracted, and completely failed to absorb the doctor’s warning about how sometimes an antidepressant can, in fact, have the completely opposite effect on a person than that which is intended. Sometimes the medication can make the symptoms  _ worse _ , and that signs for this needs to be watched for.

* * *

As October went on, Dipper continued to fall further and further behind on his schoolwork. Despite his intelligence, he was missing a lot of content by not being in class. Reading a textbook is no substitute for participating in a lecture in a classroom. And Dipper’s problems with reading meant that even that wasn’t being done on most days.

Combined with the removal of his leg cast and his mother’s need to return to her clients and start having an income again, Dipper was told it was time to go back to school on the last week of the month. His leg and ribs were still tender, but that wasn’t Dipper’s main concern. He complained to his mother that his headaches would be too much to deal with, and he needed something stronger so that he could tolerate things better. But their family doctor thought that he needed to remain off strong painkillers after being on them so long in the hospital. She suggested he take Tylenol in addition to his existing migraine medication.

The twins were driven to school that Monday. As Dipper slowly eased his way out of the car, his mother called out to Mabel, “You’ll watch out for him today, right, Pumpkin?”

“Mom!” Dipper moaned from behind his sunglasses and under his pulled-down cap. “I’m not a little kid! I can take care of myself!”

After getting a death-stare from her mother, Mabel mutely nodded, and the twins uncomfortably walked into the school together as their mother drove off.

Dipper’s first day back was difficult. The lights in the classrooms dazzled painfully in his eyes, even with the sunglasses. The material being covered was unfamiliar, and he was embarrassed by how stupid he felt. Random loud noises, like a chair squeaking across the floor, shot pain into his head.

But it was even worse between classes and at lunchtime. The cacophony of students moving between classrooms all at once just about overwhelmed Dipper’s ability to cope. And it wasn’t helped by the fact that it was well known why he had been away from school. Some “clever” students felt they needed to remind him about how much of a wimp he was for getting himself beat up in the first place.

Mabel was torn as she saw these things happening. An old part of her wanted to leap to Dipper’s side, helping him when he needed assistance and defending him from those jerks. But her thick layer of low spirits smothered her instincts.

And then, when she  _ did  _ come halfheartedly to his defense once after lunch hour, Dipper resented needing help, not wanting it to look like he needed his sister to protect him. He snapped at her, and told her to let him handle things himself. Backing away and watching Dipper suffer pain and embarrassment from a distance only made Mabel feel worse, and only deepened her depression.

* * *

The twins did not share the same class in their final period. As Dipper endured English class as best he could, he cursed the constant pain in his head.  _ This isn’t fair, no one else here has to put up with this! I can’t just keep this up, I’m going to lose it on someone for sure! _

Near the end of the class, the teacher produced a quick fifteen minute silent mini essay-writing assignment. Dipper half-assed something onto his paper just to get it over with, set his elbows on his desk, and rubbed his skull firmly, flexing his fingers into his hair over and over. The long day was really getting to him.

As the buzzer sounded (loudly, Dipper noted for the eighth time that day) to mark the end of the period, Dipper was in no hurry to rush out into the madness of the homeward bound frenzy in the hallway. He stayed at his desk, waiting for the mayhem to calm down.

Mabel’s friend Aisha stopped at his desk on her way to the classroom door. “Hey Dipper,” she said kindly. “Not feelin’ so good?”

Dipper appreciated that Aisha wasn’t expecting him to sugar-coat how he was feeling. He shook his head. “Just waiting out the crush. I’d rather not go out there until it slows down a bit.” Then he remembered something. “Do you have a minute, Aisha?”

“I got to get to rehearsal for ‘Hairspray’, pretty much now.”

“This won’t take a second,” Dipper said, as they were now the only ones left in the classroom. Even the teacher had gathered her books and was gone. “Mabel said one time that you know pretty much everyone in the school?”

Aisha waved offhandedly and smiled widely. “Aw, you know me, always gettin’ all up in everyone’s  _ biz _ -ness! Yeah! Why? What’s up with my Mabel’s little bro-bro?” she smirked teasingly.

Dipper groaned, but forged ahead. “She mentioned a senior that you know named ‘Riley’? Is that right?”

She placed a hand on her hip and raised an eyebrow dramatically. “Riley’s cool and all, but she’s into some  _ serious _ shit that ain’t down in  _ your _ comfort zone!” She tilted her head and squinted with suspicion. “Why you wantin’ to look  _ her _ up?”

“I don’t know, just some stuff,” he said evasively, increasing the pressure of his fingers massaging his head. “Can you help me so I can … talk to her about something?”

* * *

Three days later on Thursday night, the Pines family was at the dinner table. Neither of the kids had eaten much, and both were even more quiet than normal.

“Dip?” asked their mother. “You’re not complaining about your head, and you seem less bothered tonight. Is the pain getting better?”

Dipper winced and rubbed his scalp. “Maybe just a little, I guess. I think I’m covering it up better.”

“Well, don’t stop taking the Tylenol on top of the Vanatrip, it seems to be working a bit now,” she replied with some relief. Then she turned to Mabel. “Did you take your extra med tonight?” The prescription had called for the dosage of the Prozac to increase that morning.

Mabel answered without really looking up. “Yeah, Mama,” she replied without any spark of her normal self.

Their father was looking back and forth at his children, taking a sip of his tea. “Tonight’s going to be a bit different, it’ll be the first time since you were babies that you won’t be out. You two going to help us at the door?”

Dipper didn’t clue in to what his father was talking about, and didn’t particularly care to find out. “No, I just want to relax for a bit, Dad. And I’ve got a pile of homework.”

Their father looked pointedly at Mabel. She knew what he was referring to, and it tore her apart, but finally had to answer. “Yeah, me too, Daddy,” she said without enthusiasm. “I’ve got a Biology assignment due for Monday, I’ll work on it tonight … I think I’ll start now,” she finished quietly. As she headed to her room, Dipper also excused himself and gingerly made his way towards the bedroom hallway.

Concerned looks were exchanged between the twins’ parents. Adolescence, and Dipper’s slow recovery, seemingly had damaged the twins, their bond, and the whole family as a result. Not for the first time, they started discussing what they could do to repair their family unit. They were just coming up with a plan when the doorbell rang. They smiled ruefully, and went to the door to start their annual duty.

_ Ahh,  _ thought Dipper, as he carefully steadied himself on the frame of his door before closing it. In private, he didn’t need to focus nearly so hard now on how he looked while walking. He half shuffled, half stumbled across the room, towards his bed.  _ The pain’s not nearly as bad as it was!  _ he thought idly.

He pursed his lips and turned to look at his desk. His backpack was sitting there, heavy with textbooks and binders. He remembered that he had a lot of homework tonight.  _ Why? _ he wondered.  _ Oh … right! Catching up from all the time I missed. And … also because I didn’t feel like doing anything in class time today. And you know what? Fuck it! I don’t feel like it now, either. I just want to lay down. _

Dipper performed a horrible pirouette at the foot of his bed, doing the spin on his newly healed leg. He almost lost balance, but leaped up and back with enough dexterity to actually land on his mattress with a loud springy creak. He chuckled quietly to himself.  _ I am so excellent! _ he mused.

_ But … ow!  _ he realized,  _ my leg hurts. Why’s my leg hurting? One stupid little spin before jumping on the bed, and my leg gets all pissy? That’s not fair! Well … that’s easily fixed! _

Dipper reached into the back of his side-table’s upper drawer, pulling out a small pharmacy bottle.  _ Just one of these, and my leg will feel a lot better. Hmm … better make it two to be safe. _

After grabbing an opened bottle of Coke from his dresser, he tossed two Oxycontin tablets into his mouth, and washed them down with the flat, room temperature soda. He dropped the bottle of pills back in the drawer, noting that it was already about half empty.  _ Yup, Riley was right, these  _ are _ good! I’m definitely getting a larger bottle from her next time! I’ve still got some money saved from the summer. I’d better find her tomorrow.... _

Dipper’s eyes almost closed as he reclined his head onto his pillow.  _ Ahh, blessed relief,  _ he thought again with joy, eagerly awaiting the growth of the soothing, spiralling feeling that he was already very accustomed to.  _ Blessed relief … just, why’s the doorbell ringing so fucking much tonight? Go away … want to relax … just relax … yessssss … _

* * *

Mabel’s assignment for biology was in front of her on her desk. She was seated, pen in hand, physically ready to begin work.

She wasn’t close to mentally ready.

_ It’s Halloween,  _ was all she could think about.

_ Halloween was always  _ our  _ event, our big day! Who cares if we’re fourteen? Who cares if we’re in high school? I’d have dragged Dipper’s lame-ass down to the costume store if I’d have thought he could go. But he can’t. And apparently, given how he’s feeling tonight, he doesn’t even  _ want _ to, either. _

The doorbell rang again. She pictured the children, small (and sometimes not-so-small) kids running from house to house, visiting as many as they could, happily receiving the good, non-loser candy from Mama or Daddy at their door. Kids like she and Dipper used to be.

Mabel got up and pulled her Halloween memory book from the shelf. She started at the beginning and stared at the photos, with their cute, complimentary outfits, every one of them, right back to when they were two-month-old infants. She held her expression, keeping it neutral as she studied the photos of two happy children, year after year, growing closer each year. Thirteen Halloweens in all.

And an extra two bonus pages, too: they had been lucky to be up in Gravity Falls for Summerween the last two summers. Peanut butter and jelly last year. Link and Zelda this year.  _ My gosh, we worked together so hard up in the attic in the evenings after work was done, just to be ready for Summerween this year, _ she recalled.  _ They turned out so well, and everyone loved them! Even the people like Grunkle Stan who had no idea who we were supposed to be. _

Swallowing, Mabel turned the page to the space reserved for Halloween this year.

Blank. It would always be blank.

Forever.

The book slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor with a thud. Mabel’s face crumbled, bottled-up tears now cascading down her cheeks. Sobbing quietly, she concluded that “blank” was as good as life was going to be, from now on.  _ Empty, joyless … just … EXISTENCE! That’s all life is, now! _

_ I don’t want this. I … can’t  _ live _ like this! I’d rather just … not … live … _

Mabel curled up on top of her bed, soft cries continuing to fill her room.

* * *

November came. Leaves turned, and temperatures fell a bit more. There was more cold rain. Christmas decorations appeared in stores and public buildings. Thanksgiving dinners were eaten, and there was Black Friday shopping.

At Piedmont High School, the production of “Hairspray” was a big success. Everyone marvelled at the performance of Aisha, who stole the show in her role as Inez Stubbs. Following the show’s closing night, she was immediately asked to join the school’s glee club, and she instantly accepted. Jordan and Juanita had only minor ensemble roles in the play, but at Aisha’s insistence they auditioned for the club, and both were also invited to join. Since all three were used to being at practice for the play all the time, additional time at lunch hour and after school were no problem as they learned new songs and dance routines.

Anthony’s relationship with Sandra intensified during the run-up to the show’s debut, and they spent virtually all of their time together. When the show closed, they finally had time to go on their first real “date”, and their standing as a couple was made official. Rare was the moment that their eyes were on anybody but each other.

Ezra had given up on the “Nerd Club” idea in late September (with Anthony always busy and Dipper in hospital). He was now fully embedded in the school’s photography club. The veteran members of the club, all of them in upper grades, admired Ezra’s skills with a camera. He liked being befriended by older students, who also never teased him about his weight, and spent most of his free time with his new friends.

On Monday after Thanksgiving, Dipper carefully picked his way through the cafeteria at lunchtime. The soothing numbness from the two Oxy pills he’d taken that morning was starting to wear off, and he was feeling the compulsion for a couple more. He willed himself to at least wait until after lunch. He approached the table where he used to always sit with Anthony and Ezra in those first couple of weeks of school, and as usual these days, the seats were empty.

Before he sat down, he glanced up out of habit to where Mabel and her posse of friends usually sat. Mabel was there, sitting alone, staring at the table as she chewed her sandwich.

Dipper had spent the last several weeks stewing in self-pity, and revelling in the haze of the painkillers he was taking. It occurred to him, seeing Mabel sitting alone, that he’d been ignoring her for quite awhile. And it also appeared that she looked none too happy. 

He walked over to her table. “Hey, Mabes,” he said tentatively, standing across the table from his sister. She looked up with an interest level barely on this side of zero. He ploughed ahead. “Mind if I eat lunch with you?”

Mabel’s face lowered slowly back down to the table. “Knock yourself out, Bro,” she answered without enthusiasm.

As Dipper sat, he saw for the first time just how low Mabel was. Internally, he kicked himself for how little he'd been paying attention to her lately. He reached over and tapped her elbow. "Wanna talk about anything?" he asked gently. 

Mabel swallowed the bite of her sandwich, but didn't look up. "What's the point?" she grumbled softly. "Is anything gonna change between us?"

Dipper suspected that was what was bothering her. He removed his sunglasses: the light didn’t hurt at all anymore, not while he was on Riley’s magic pills, but he had gotten used to not having to look anyone in the eye. Now, though, he found he wanted Mabel to see him, and he leaned over the table. "Mabel, you have to believe me when I say I still lo- ... still care about you," he muttered. 

His sister’s head didn’t move, but her eyes darted accusingly to him. “You can’t even say it out loud,” she hissed, “not even whisper it, when no one is listening!”

“No, I can’t!” he hissed back, aware of other students sitting at nearby tables. “What would happen if …”

“I don’t care!” Mabel cut him off, whispering harshly. “Because it doesn’t matter, does it? Even if I  _ do _ believe you … what’s the point?” she repeated. “What good is it, if knowing that only makes everything feel  _ worse? _ "

Dipper sat frozen, unable to respond. 

“I can’t  _ take _ this, Dipper!” she continued. “How am I supposed to just keep going all hunky dory happy lappy, like nothing’s different, like nothing’s  _ changed!!  _ We  _ have _ changed!  _ Everything _ has changed! We’re … we’re much  _ more _ than what we were … and I can’t go back. I  _ can’t _ , Dipper!”

The thought that anyone might be listening was rapidly becoming much less important to Dipper by the second, as he was starting to comprehend just how much pain Mabel was in. “If this is about what I said at the hospital, before Mom came in the room, about how I got mad at you because you wanted to .. you know …”

Mabel shook her head. She glanced around, then spoke quietly. “Making love with you was wonderful ... and yeah, I miss it, but … it’s not  _ just  _ that ... it’s  _ all of it!  _ And we have  _ none _ of it! I know it's dangerous, but you say I can't kiss you. I can't touch you! I can't  _ talk _ to you. I ..." she gestured helplessly, staring at the half-eaten lunch on the table, "I can't even  _ look _ at you!"

Dipper sat in helpless paralysis as Mabel continued. "If you weren’t always with me, maybe I could move on. But you  _ are _ always with me! At school, at home, at church! … If I hated you for this, or you hated me, then maybe … but we  _ don’t! _ ” She closed her eyes as tears began streaming down her face. “I  _ love  _ you, Dip! And I know you love me, too!” she whispered, wiping her face with the napkin Dipper had pressed into her hands. 

Dipper's instincts screamed at him, demanding he comfort his sister: he wanted to take her hands, hold her in his arms, and kiss her pain away. But he also was keenly aware that many students in the cafeteria had now taken notice of them, that Mabel was crying for some reason.  _ Maybe if I get her outside, we can find a little private place,  _ he thought.

“C’mon, Mabel …” he began.

But she misinterpreted the start of his sentence, thinking he just wanted to shut her down and stop making a scene. She threw her face to the ceiling, pulling air sharply through her nose, and quickly stood. Still avoiding Dipper’s eyes, she gathered up the remains of her lunch. “You’re right! Stop snivelling, stiff upper lip, all that jazz! I got it, Sir Dipshit!” she declared, loud enough that it triggered muffled laughter from nearby tables. Dipper knew it would be impossible to have a conversation now, and he allowed Mabel to leave without any further words between them.

Dipper sat alone for a moment, lost in thoughts of what his sister had just told him. Then he looked around, and noticed that other students were still curiously peering his way, wondering what was up with these two notoriously moody twins. Scowling, he shoved his sunglasses on his face, threw his untouched lunch into a garbage bin, and headed for the exit. He dug into a pocket for his bottle of Oxycontin, fished out three tablets, and quickly washed them down at a drinking fountain before disappearing out into the hallway.

* * *

As the autumn school semester came to a close, the mood inside the home of the Pines family did not match the merriment of the approaching Christmas season.

Mabel and Dipper had managed to eke out passing grades for all of their classes, assuming they managed to not completely flunk their final exams. It was the worst showing for either of them in all their years in school, and not a good way to start their high school careers. While Dipper, at least in the mind of his teachers, had a valid excuse, Mabel simply came across as a distant, disinterested, and underachieving teenager.

There was just one more day of exams left, and then the two-week break for Christmas and New Years would begin. It was Thursday evening and Dipper was in his room, trying to cram some more details about American history into his fuzzy brain, and hoping it stayed there for at least twenty-four hours.

A knock at his door interrupted his studying. “Come in,” he called out, looking up from his books, expecting one of his parents.

He was surprised to see Mabel opening the door, holding the same history textbook for their exam the next morning. They’d mostly stayed away from each other for the last month. Dipper found isolation to be somehow less painful than facing his sister, and their feelings for one another. Not for the first time, he noticed the grim expression on her face, and wondered if he should be even more worried about her. Sometimes it seemed like she was an entirely different person, someone who just didn’t care about anything, specifically herself.

She leaned on the frame of Dipper’s bedroom door awkwardly. “Got a sec, Broseph?” she asked morosely.

“Yeah. Of course, Mabes,” Dipper replied sincerely, turning his chair towards her. “Want to … study for the exam together?”

“Sure,” Mabel replied, closing the door behind her and leaning back against it. “Actually, no, not really.” She paused for a moment of uncomfortable silence. “Can I borrow something off of you?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess,” Dipper replied. “What do you need?”

“Umm … “ Mabel sighed, twisting her hair in her hand. “Can I have some of those pills you take?”

Dipper’s eyes widened. Trying to play it cool, he replied, “You’re … not allowed to take my meds ... Mom keeps them in the cupboard, and I take them from there. She’d notice if any of them were missing. And besides, they wouldn’t really do anything …”

Mabel exhaled and rolled her eyes. “You  _ know _ what pills I’m talking about, Dumbass!” she shot back softly. “The ones you’re buying at school!”

He gaped, unprepared for the ambush. “How … how did you know?” he stammered, wondering how much trouble he was in.

“I’m not an imbecile! I’ve known for a long time. Aisha told me when she first introduced you to Riley …before she got too busy to spend any time with me, like everybody else,” Mabel grumbled.

Dipper’s heart rate slowed a bit, as it looked like Mabel was not going to bust him to their parents. He regarded her carefully. “Why do you want those pills?” he asked.

“They take away pain, don’t they? They make you feel better? … I don’t want any more pain, either. I want to see if they’ll … make me feel better, too.”

“Yeah, but …” Dipper said worriedly, “they don’t work on  _ that _ kind of pain, Mabel. You’re already taking  _ your  _ stuff for that, aren’t you?”

Mabel snorted with derision. “Yeah, and they’re working  _ so  _ well, I’ve been feeling so great for the last two months!” She stared at her brother. “C’mon, let me have a few. Like, maybe a dozen or so, so I can see if they work for me.”

He considered her request. The gentle and relaxing euphoria that he felt after taking Oxy might not make him feel  _ better _ , per se, but they certainly were a distraction from dealing with stuff that made him feel  _ worse _ . Perhaps they’d be able to distract Mabel from the stuff that bothered her, as well. Dipper sighed. “All right,” he said.

Reaching his hand under his bed, he felt around in a hole he had cut into the box spring, then pulled out a bag with two large bottles of pills. He dumped several into his palm, counting out twelve, as Mabel walked over to him.

“So you know you have to take it easy with these, right?” Dipper said. “You’ll feel it when you take just one, and with two you can get really spaced. More than that and …” Dipper stopped, as Mabel’s expression became one of contemplation as he started talking about what happens when a larger quantity of pills are consumed.

Dipper began reopening the bottle, preparing to put the pills back. “Maybe you should just try one, and see what that feels like.”

“No!” Mabel piped up, then more calmly, said, “No, Dipper, just … just let me have the dozen in your hand.”

A chill ran down Dipper’s spine as he heard quiet desperation in his sister’s voice. Adrenaline pushed the remaining haze from his mind. “Why?” he asked fearfully.

Mabel’s silence and intense glare was more than enough to tell him exactly why.

Dipper stood quickly, knocking his chair over onto the floor, and grabbed Mabel’s arm with his empty hand. “Mabel …  _ No! _ ” he rasped, in shock. “Why are you  _ thinking  _ about stuff like that?”

Her jaw set, and one of her eyes narrowed. Dipper recognized it as Mabel’s tell that she was about to take action. As a result, he was prepared when she lunged for his hand, the one with the pills gripped in his palm. Moving with a dexterity he never knew he had, Dipper used Mabel’s momentum against her and threw her past him onto his bed. Then in one smooth motion, he dumped the loose pills into the pill bag, folded it over, and whipped the entire bag into the back of his closet. As Mabel got back to her feet, Dipper slammed the closet door, and stood in front of it.

They stared at each other, Mabel with determination born of desperation, Dipper panting in frightened panic. For over a minute, but for what seemed an eternity, neither moved an inch.

Mabel’s resolve cracked first. Her expression slowly collapsed from defiance to despair. “Dipper …  _ please _ !” she croaked softly.

“ _ No _ , Mabel!” he implored. “I can’t! Not  _ ever! _ You … you  _ can’t _ do anything like that! …  _ Why,  _ Mabel? Why would you try to  _ do  _ this?” Dipper’s voice was quivering with barely controlled emotion.

Mabel’s expression twisted as she released her dejection. “Are you serious, Dipper? You don’t  _ know _ ? How can you  _ not _ know? Ever since … ever since the day before we came home from Gravity Falls, when … when Grunkle Stan told us that he knew about us! Nothing has been good since! Everything has been  _ hell!  _ And now, we’ve got Christmas, less than a week away! Everyone’s supposed to be  _ so happy! _ It’s supposed to be the most joyful, giving, loving time of the year! And I don’t feel  _ any of that!! _ ”

Her face contorted even more. “I can’t  _ do  _ this anymore,” she whimpered. “I’ve tried! I’ve  _ tried!! _ Nothing’s changed! Nothing’s better! I’m miserable, Dipper! I’m  _ so _ miserable, I can’t  _ stand _ it!!” She drew a shuddering gasp. “I don’t want to  _ live _ like this, if this is what living is going to be like! … I … I just …  _ can’t!!”  _ Mabel slowly sank to her knees, curling her head down, her body jerking as she forced her chest muscles to contain her sobs.

Dipper knelt down in front of her and gripped her shoulders. Mabel shook violently, not wanting his touch as she continued to weep forcefully, but quietly. Dipper stayed in front of her, trying to hold back his own tears.

“Mabel ... you need help! You’ve … we’ve got to tell Mom and Dad about this!” Mabel shook her head firmly, her chin still pinned to her chest. “Please, Mabel, I’ll … I’ll go tell them myself! You have to let me …”

She drew a large breath. “ _ No,  _ Dipper!” she snarled. “I said  _ no! _ If you tell them … I’ll tell them about your pills!” as she glared at her brother threateningly.

As Dipper looked back at Mabel in horror, they heard a call from down the hall from their mother. “Dip! Pumpkin! Are you guys busy right now?”

Dipper continued his unwanted staring contest with Mabel as he loudly replied, “We’re studying for our history exam tomorrow, Mom!”

“Well, can you take a break for a few minutes?” she called back. “We have some good news to tell you!”

Mabel bitterly stared back at Dipper. “We’ll be right there, Mama!” she yelled.

“Okay, thanks!” they heard their mother reply, as the twins slowly calmed down and reluctantly prepared to once again cover up the harsh reality of their relationship together, and present themselves to their parents as “normally” as they could.

* * *

“We’re doing  _ what _ for Christmas?” Dipper asked in confusion.

Their mother smiled with fake enthusiasm. “We’re getting away from here! The last few months have been pretty awful, with everything that’s happened. We thought we needed to pull out of here and get a change of scenery. It will do us  _ all _ some good!”

Mabel had a tiny sliver of adventure that even major depression couldn’t entirely cover up. “So, we’re taking a vacation somewhere?”

It was their father’s turn to put on a smile. “Well, we considered getting a place at a resort in Mexico, or a Caribbean island, but the rates for places like that during the holidays are really high. And even if we could justify spending the money, every place we tried that looks any good was already booked up. So … we’re doing the next best thing!”

The twins looked to and from each of their parents impatiently. “What?” they asked in unison.

Their mother grinned. “We’re all driving up to Oregon, and we’re going to spend Christmas with your Grunkle Stan in Gravity Falls!” she practically squealed, shaking her fists quickly back and forth in front of her in a display of forced excitement.

Mabel and Dipper’s mouths both dropped open. Against their will, their heads turned to each other in disbelief.

They were going to be sitting next to each other in the back seat of the car for almost ten hours each way. They were going to have to do family holiday activities together. They were going to be sleeping in the same room together. All with their parents right there watching every move, thinking that they were helping the twins heal their friendship.

All with Grunkle Stan seeing all of this, knowing exactly what had happened to cause all of this misery between the kids.

The twins silently knew that this was the worst plan for Christmas that could possibly have been conceived by man or deity. Their faces betrayed their absolute lack of enthusiasm.

“Oh, come on!” their mother said, trying to excite the kids. “It’ll be a mini-adventure, like some of those stories we heard about your first summer up there. It’ll be fun, I promise!” She clapped her hands together eagerly. “Hey! I know! Why don’t you two do my favorite thing to celebrate? Do that .. fist bumping … thing you do! It’s always the cutest!”

Dipper and Mabel again looked at each other, dreading what they were being asked to do. Despite the months of hard feelings, despite the tension and threats uttered just minutes ago in Dipper’s room, this was almost too much for both of them. The fistbump was  _ theirs _ , their private symbol of love between them. They hadn’t performed the action in over three months.

Mabel bit her lower lip as she balled up her hand in front of her. Dipper closed his eyes and raised his own fist. 

Their fists lightly tapped together in the most unsatisfying fistbump ever performed in history.

* * *


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note 1: So going back to the original "Fistbump", I was not expecting The Author (Stanford) to make it past the series finale, so he is not in this story (no specific explanation as to what happened to him). I also did not anticipate that Grunkle Stan would give up the Mystery Shack, which of course also means that I didn't anticipate Soos becoming the new proprietor. These assumptions were wrong, but cannot be modified.
> 
> Author's Note 2: The end of this chapter marks the completion of the chapters that had been last updated elsewhere in February 2016. Starting with Chapter 11, this will be new content. I will be updating every other day instead of every day.

* * *

“Thanks again for letting us come up on such short notice, Uncle Stan.”

Stanley Pines stretched out his back, then greeted his oldest nephew at the front door of Mystery Shack, as the younger man clomped snow off his feet and walked up the step. “No problem, and Merry Christmas, kid! Nice to see you finally make it up here after all these years!”

The twins’ father was exhausted after the long drive, but still smiled as he exhaled in mock exasperation. “I’m a grown man, with a family of my own! Do you think you might finally be able to call me something other than ‘kid’?” he exclaimed with a short laugh. “Like, oh I don’t know, maybe my  _ name _ ?”

“Not a chance, kid!” Stan retorted back with a grin, grabbing hold of a hand and pulling his nephew into a brief embrace. Then he paused awkwardly, looking past to where the family’s car was parked in the snowy driveway, to where the twins and their mother were gathering bags to be brought inside from the cold. “Uhh … before the others get in earshot, I was hoping to get a chance to explain what happened, you know, with me and your Uncle Stanford last summer …”

His nephew waved off any concern. “Please don’t worry about it, Uncle Stan,” he quietly assured him. “It took Dip and Mabel a while to explain it to us last fall, but I think we understand. We don’t need to dredge up bad memories over Christmas. Especially ....” He paused, then continued softly. “Especially not with the way things are now.”

Stan’s voice also lowered, concern obvious in his face. “How’re they doing? Any different since you two called me a few days ago with this plan of yours to come up here?” His only reply was a brief, sad shake of the head, as the rest of family was coming up the steps to the front porch.

Mabel was first to her Grunkle, dropping her bags and hugging her arms around his waist while pressing her cheek against his chest. Stan returned the embrace, but noticed instantly that Mabel’s squeeze around him was a fraction of her normal death-grip, and that her expression and voice had none of her normal exuberance. She looked tired and defeated, so completely unlike the great-niece he had come to know so well.

As Dipper waited with his arms full, Stan gave him a quick glance. He’d seen his great nephew in some pretty bad ways before, but never before had the boy’s eyes been so red and glazed, nor had his overall hygiene appeared so neglected. Stan gripped Dipper’s shoulder and shook it gently, drawing a tired half-smile from the teen.

The kids put on brave faces, but they didn’t fool their Grunkle in the slightest. Dipper and Mabel were suffering, and he knew precisely why. They had not put  _ anything  _ that happened over the last week of summer behind them. He didn’t need to know any details of what had happened between the twins since he’d last seen them on Labor Day weekend. They still had feelings for each other, and were completely unable to deal with their emotions in any kind of healthy way. And he would never be able to tell their parents how to help them, not without revealing their secret. Stan knew his nephew (and his wife) would never condone or tolerate the truth about the twins. If he was going to help these kids, he’d have to try to find another way.

* * *

The Pines family had arrived in Gravity Falls on Saturday evening, having driven straight through after getting up early the morning after the twins’ final exams. The plan was that they would be staying for two weeks, returning home the weekend after New Year’s. They barely had any time to pack before leaving, so the contents of the bags were haphazardly tossed together. Dipper’s suitcase, in particular, seemed to simply contain whatever he found on his bedroom floor immediately before heading out the door.

Dipper was alone in the chilly attic, sorting through his belongings with his suitcase on his bed, when Stan came up the stairs. Dipper subtly threw one of his thick flannel button-up shirts over a large black book that was near his pillow as his great uncle rapped his knuckle on the door frame.

“Hey kid! Your mom’s got Mabel helping her with cleanup after dinner, and your dad’s down unpacking their stuff in Ford’s old room. How you doing up here?”

Dipper looked around the attic soberly. “Everything’s pretty much like we left it. Thanks, Grunkle Stan.” Dipper went back to sorting through his clothes and books, leaving the room in uncomfortable silence. 

“So … I guess maybe I should go over those boxing tips again with you, huh, kid? Maybe you need another lesson, am I right?” Stan poked at Dipper with a mischievous grin. Dipper pointedly turned away, his reaction making it plain that he didn’t appreciate the attempted humor at his expense.

Stan squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Ahh … sorry Dipper. I’ve taken a beating before, but nothing like I heard you got. You hangin’ in there? How’s the old noggin doing?”

Dipper shrugged. “It’s better than it was, I guess.” He shivered. “It’s kinda cold up here. Isn’t there any heat in the attic?”

“Not a lot, sorry. Only what comes up the stairs. You’ll have to leave the door open, or you’ll freeze up here. But … for right now ...” Stan paused again, and gently closed the door. “Kid, can I … uh, do you mind if your old grunkle offers .. you know, a suggestion?”

The teenager flushed, and let his head drop in mild exasperation. “Grunkle Stan, I forced a stop to everything physical between Mabel and I. We aren’t going to “try” anything while we’re up here, certainly not with the door open, if that’s what you’re talking about,” he muttered sourly, staring into his suitcase.

Stan rubbed his forehead, sympathizing with his great nephew for the weight of all the emotional baggage he had been carrying inside him, and Dipper hadn’t even guessed at the actual uncomfortable subject he had intended to raise.

“Thanks, but that’s not it …” Stan leveled his gaze at Dipper, speaking quietly but firmly. “I was hoping that you’d want to hand over whatever it is that you’re taking, before I have to tell your parents … that you’re a drug addict.”

Dipper’s head snapped up, his face a mix of fear and bravado. “How di- … I … I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Yeah, you do,” Stan replied calmly, but with authority. “Trust me, I know exactly what someone with an addiction looks like.” Stan glanced down to Dipper’s arms. “I don’t see any needle marks, and besides I don’t think you’re quite stupid enough for heroin, so I doubt that’s it. I’m guessing pills. What is it? Fentanyl? Vicodin? Oxycontin?” A subtle widening of Dipper’s eyes and tensing of his shoulder muscles told the elder Pines he had been correct with the last guess. “There it is. So how many are you taking?”

Dipper realized there was no point in lying any longer: The old con man obviously was able to see through him far easier than his parents could. He sat heavily on his bed and silently stared at nothing for several moments. “Seven or eight a day,” he finally confessed quietly, then he shifted his weight, looking guilty. “Sometimes nine or ten,” he mumbled. 

Stan tried to mask his concern. Dipper couldn’t have been much more than a hundred pounds. For someone so small, such a high dose of painkillers would be a difficult addiction to kick. He decided that action was required immediately.

“OK, this needs to end, and I know how to help you, kid. I’m giving you two choices. You agree right now to trust me, and you do  _ exactly  _ what I say, and we can fix this without anyone else knowing. Or, I go right downstairs and tell your folks  _ tonight _ . Take your pick.” 

Fear and panic broke out on Dipper’s face. “Grunkle Stan, please don’t … what are you … why would you do this? Why would you help me to keep this from Mom and Dad?”

The old man knelt down in front of Dipper. “Cause I made some big mistakes when I was a kid, too, and I wish someone had helped me out before my old man found out. I’m not saying your dad would kick you out, like your great-grandfather did to me. But even though I don’t see my nephew often, I do know him well enough to know … well, I know he'd overreact. Probably send you off to a rehab school, away from home.”

“No!” Dipper gasped, aghast at the suggestion. “Mabel needs me! I … I  _ can’t _ be taken away from her, you have to help me … I’ll do anything you want me to! Please, just … just don’t tell Mom and Dad!”

Stan gave a stern stare to his great nephew. “I know you don’t want to be separated from her, but  _ that  _ wasn’t hormones talking!” He gripped Dipper firmly by the shoulders. “I see  _ your  _ problem, but what the hell is going on with Mabel?” he demanded. 

Dipper gulped, frantically trying to think of what lie he could come up with, something to suitably explain Mabel’s behavior. Finally though, he realized he had to be totally honest with  _ somebody _ . Stan had kept the secret of what had happened at the end of the summer. It was Stan or nobody.

Putting his trust completely in his great uncle, Dipper opened up for the first time about everything that had happened since the end of summer. His awful mistake in his bedroom their first evening alone in the house. The close calls, almost getting caught multiple times. Mabel’s fury and lashing out after Dipper’s insistence that they stop things. Dipper’s cruel comments at the hospital. Mabel’s depression and the ineffective medications she’d been prescribed. How Dipper had gotten addicted to painkillers. Their reluctant isolation from each other for months. He finished by telling him of Mabel’s attempt to get his pills just two evenings before, and her threat to expose his addiction if he told their parents. Stan had sat down beside Dipper on his bed as he listened to the account in stunned silence. His great nephew and niece were still just kids, only fourteen years old! The summer adventures they’d experienced over a year ago had been bad enough, but this was entirely something else! He was having difficulty imagining the stress they had been under. 

“I don’t know, kid,” Stan sighed. “Maybe you shouldn’t be trying to do this on your own. Maybe you  _ should _ come clean to your folks about the pills, and tell them about how bad Mabel’s depression is at the same time. You both might be able to use the help, after all.”

“And if I do that, you  _ know  _ the whole truth about Mabel and I will come out, too!” Dipper replied pleadingly. “What’s a counsellor or shrink gonna do when they figure out that this messed up brother and sister are also …  _ in love _ with each other? When they know what we’ve done together! I could deny it, but you know Mabel is terrible at lying! What then? You really think they’re  _ not _ going to tell Mom and Dad? And we already know what  _ they _ will do!” 

Stan’s back had stiffened.  _ Son of a bitch, I’m such an idiot, _ he thought to himself. Now he realized how stupid the suggestion he’d just made to Dipper really was. If any social worker or doctor found out about Dipper and Mabel having had sex together, being separated by their parents would be the  _ least  _ of their concerns. In all likelihood, officials from Child Protection Services would immediately pull the twins out of their home. Their parents would be investigated for neglect, or worse. Mabel would be placed in protective custody, and Dipper could even be criminally charged with sexual assault!

Stan couldn’t say any of this to Dipper: it would only heap more pressure onto the young teenager. Dipper continued appealing to his great uncle. “Please, Grunkle Stan! I'll stop the pills! Right now! Just … please don't tell Mom and Dad!”

“Alright alright, we’ll try things out ourselves, first,” Stan relented, to Dipper’s relief.

For the next several minutes, Stan explained how they would break Dipper’s Oxycontin habit. Cold turkey wasn’t going to work: the withdrawal symptoms would be too difficult to manage and would be too obvious to his parents. Stan needed to get ahold of Methadone, and would make a call to Santiago the next morning to purchase a supply as quickly as possible before his next pug run to the border. 

Stan ordered Dipper to hand over his supply of pills. Dipper paused, reluctant for a moment, then slowly found and withdrew a paper bag from his suitcase. Stan found the bottle inside, opened it and pulled out three pills, then passed them over to Dipper while putting the bottle back in the bag and tucking it into his pocket. “Take just one of these tonight,” said Stan. “Then take another in the morning, and keep the third as a spare, only for if you really get desperate and need it. I’ll try to be back before your folks get home from whatever church they said they want to go to tomorrow morning. Then, say adios to that nice little buzz you’re used to. Methadone helps ease the cravings, but it won’t give you the high. And it doesn’t relieve pain. I’ll pick up some Tylenol while I’m out, but I’m hoping that you’re actually over your headaches by now. Well … guess we’ll find out tomorrow!” he added with a sigh.

Stan heard his name being called from downstairs. Rising to his feet and crossing the floor, he opened the door and yelled, “Be right down!” then looked briefly back to the anxious young teenager. “You can do this, kid! You’re strong. The next few days will be the hardest, but I’ll help you get through it. The worst will be over in a few days, so you should be mostly fine for Christmas on Wednesday. But don’t kid yourself, you’ve got a long while ahead of you when your body is still going to be screaming at you, making you want those pills. Trust me … I know … You’d better be ready.” With a quick nod and a small, supportive smile, Stan went down the stairs, leaving the door open behind him.

Alone in the attic again, Dipper sat motionless in contemplation. He hadn’t been expecting to be forced to face up to his addiction. He hadn’t even been willing to admit to himself that he had a problem.  _ Am I really doing anything wrong? I’m not hurting anybody _ , he rationalized to himself.  _ Sure, I knew I’d be in trouble with Mom and Dad if they found out about the pills _ .  _ Just add it to the list of things they don’t know about me! _

_ But … what if Grunkle Stan is right, and I don’t need them anymore? I suppose I really should try … Oh fuck!  _ he remembered with a start. _ I’d damn well  _ better _ try! Because if I fail at this, Stan said he’s gonna tell Mom and Dad anyways. Then … if they send me to some rehab place … what will happen to Mabel?! _

Losing Mabel was  _ not  _ an option. Their lives may be miserable now, but he couldn’t face the possibility of not having her near him.

_ She needs me! I need to be there for her! I’ve been awful these last couple of months, letting myself float in the clouds made by the pills. I should have been more supportive of her!  _ His thoughts paused, as he realized something else.  _ And .. and I need her! I need her to be herself again! She’s my other half … my  _ better _ half! I just … love her so fucking much! _

Dipper rubbed away the tears forming in his eyes as he lifted the flannel shirt from the bed and picked up the thick book that had been concealed beneath it. It was a book that he did not bring with him from California, but had left hidden at the Shack after the last two summers. No one else knew about the book: not his parents, not Grunkle Stan, not even Mabel. 

He gazed solemnly at the heavy tome, and at the cross that was starkly prominent on the cover. Above the cross were the words “Holy Bible”.

_ I thought I was finished with this, _ he mused to himself as he opened the cover and began leafing through to familiar pages.  _ I thought I didn’t want this anymore. But … this is all too much! … I can't handle all of this without help! Stan might be able to help me get off the pills, but what about helping Mabel? Stan can't help her! I can, but ... I can't do it alone. I have to … I have to …  _ believe! _ I have to  _ know _ … that the help I need is right here in this book, and all I have to do … is ask! _

Dipper closed the cover, shut his eyes, and whispered for the strength to do what he needed to do. He had been obsessed with getting his Oxy fix every day, and had neglected Mabel for too long. He would kick the addiction for Mabel. He would do  _ anything  _ for his sister!

Then he heard Mabel coming up the stairs to the attic. Swiftly, he knelt down to the floor and pushed the thick volume underneath his bed.

* * *

Mabel had not particularly wanted to go to the attic. It wasn’t just that she didn’t want to shiver in the cold temperatures upstairs. She also didn’t want to be surrounded by an environment that forced her to think of happier times. And she didn’t want to have a conversation with Dipper.

But she asked to be excused and go upstairs because more than anything, she just wanted to sleep.

_ I’m tired, _ she said to herself as she climbed the stairs.  _ I’m so tired … tired of everything. School. Chores. Church. Mama and Daddy. Even … Dipper. Maybe even  _ especially _ Dipper!  _

Mabel was mentally and physically exhausted, despite having dozed for much of the car ride that day on the way up to Oregon. She thought back, for the thousandth time, to the tense moments in Dipper’s room two evenings previous. How the week had been so long and arduous, what with studying for and writing exams she didn’t care about, and Christmas cheer blaring from every radio station and storefront. She’d had enough. She just wanted it all to end, so that she would be free of all the pain, heartache, and pressure.

_ I almost fooled Dipper into giving me those pills,  _ she remembered.  _ I don’t know if I really would have gone through with taking them all, or not. But now, I can’t … even if I want to! He’s going to have them hidden somewhere I can’t get.  _

_ I just want to feel numb.  _

_ I want to feel … nothing! _

As she reached the top of the stairs, she glanced in the old attic bedroom that had come to mean so much to the twins over the last two summers. There he was, straightening up from a crouching position beside his bed. He stopped and glanced up towards her, and just in time Mabel averted her eyes.  _ Jeez, Dipper! Why do you have to go and give a crap about me now, all of a sudden! Just let me go! Forget about me ... Then I’ll know you won’t miss me … when I’m … gone. _

Mabel avoided looking at her brother as she entered the room. He had put her suitcase up onto her bed, where it was easy for her to reach and unpack.  _ Oh Dipper, why’d you have to go and do that for me?  _ she thought guiltily. 

Opening the suitcase, she found her nightgown in short order. From her peripheral vision, she could see Dipper looking through his own bags as she fished out her toothbrush and toothpaste, then she quickly headed back down the stairs to the bathroom to change and get ready for bed. She needed to get out of there before she could accidentally make eye contact with her twin.

On her return from the bathroom, dressed for bed, Dipper was still arranging clothes and books from his bags, but her suitcase had been zipped closed and placed nearby on the floor, and the covers of her bed were pulled back, ready for her to get in. 

Mabel closed her eyes, willing the wetness in her eyes to go away.  _ Don’t feel it, Mabel, _ she repeated over and over in her mind. _ You’ll get to sleep quickly if you just get into bed and close your eyes. Just don’t feel! _

Wordlessly, Mabel climbed into her bed, pulling up the covers under her chin against the cold air and turning to face the wall. Behind her, Dipper turned down the lamp. 

She squirmed in chilly discomfort as she gripped the thin blankets tightly, wishing for her body heat to warm up the bed more quickly. As Dipper finished arranging his books on the other side of the room, Mabel sighed in resignation at the promise of a night that would be spent in the cold.

There was a rustling sound behind her back, followed by footsteps coming towards her bed. Without a word, Dipper spread his own blanket on top of Mabel’s. She heard a soft sniffle as the blanket was tucked gently around her neck. 

_ Don’t feel anything … Don’t … feel … anything ... _

Behind her came careful noises of bedtime clothes and towels being gathered, followed by sounds of gentle squeaking of the floorboards that moved away towards the door. Then there was a moment of near silence: Mabel could hear ragged breathing.

“I … I love you Mabel,” came Dipper’s quiet, unsteady voice, followed by swift creaks of footsteps quickly padding down the wooden staircase.

Mabel’s pillow absorbed the wetness of her tears and the sounds of her anguished sobs for several minutes, before she finally drifted off to sleep.

* * *

The following morning, the twins’ parents were planning to attend Sunday morning service. They would be gone for some time, as they would be driving to Bend, Oregon, where the couple wanted to attend service at a large gospel church located there. Bend was the only moderately-sized town in the region, about an hour’s drive from Gravity Falls.

Dipper surprised his parents by asking to go with them. The twins had only sporadically attended church with them since the second Sunday of September, and they were happy to see that at least Dipper had shown a renewed interest in sharing faith with them. 

Mabel, on the other hand, was not interested. Dipper made a weak attempt to convince her to come with them, but she meekly declined, preferring to stay in her nightgown while the family ate breakfast. Stan told Mabel she could stay and hang out with her old Grunkle in the Shack, and she glumly nodded in agreement. She avoided eye contact with Dipper as the rest of the family got ready to set out. Shortly afterward, the family car’s tires were crunching through a light dusting of newly-fallen snow, as Dipper and his parents left for the city.

The car was barely beyond the first corner in the driveway when Stan looked at Mabel. “All right, kid! Get dressed, we’re going into town.”

Mabel looked to Stan in confusion. “You just said we’re hanging around here.”

“I lied. You should be used to that by now,” her great uncle replied swiftly. “Get going, we have to make sure we’re back here long before your family returns.”

* * *

Winter had come early to central Oregon that year. It was already dark the evening before when the Pines family had arrived in Gravity Falls, so now in the daylight, Mabel was seeing the beauty of the snow-covered region for the first time. Living in the San Francisco Bay area all her life, she rarely had to deal with snow at all.

Mabel stood beside the Stanmobile and looked around as her great uncle swept snow off the windows and the vast hood of the rusty old clunker. Having spent two summers there, she knew the area around the Mystery Shack like the back of her hand, but seeing the rustic A-frame tourist trap and the tall stands of evergreen trees, all blanketed in a layer of fluffy whiteness, was a breathtaking new experience. Closed for business until the start of the next year’s tourist season, the Shack looked like a pristine artifact, as if it belonged in a full-sized snow globe. Deep inside her, the voice of a playful, exuberant goofball struggled to be heard, urging Mabel to dive headfirst into a snowbank just for the sheer joy of being silly. 

But that voice, as usual for her these days, was immediately drowned out. The experience of depression had trained her to discourage herself from seeking out happy feelings, because they were always followed by unhappiness that felt even worse than before. She couldn’t know that the Prozac that she was prescribed was not properly stimulating the production of serotonin and dopamine in her brain, as it was designed to do. As a result, the other chemical regulating effects were just reinforcing her negative emotions, effectively making her depression worse.

As Stan drove them to town, Mabel’s eyes lost focus, no longer seeing the beautiful winter scenery passing by. Her mind wandered to Dipper, and his sudden change as of the previous night. She could tell he was trying to be the caring, concerned, loving brother she always knew he was ...

_ Oh, poopcicles!  _ she thought.  _ Not again! Not now! I can’t think about Dipper, about how wonderful he can be, about … no!  _ She willed herself to change the subject in her mind. To something else, anything else! She swiped at her eyes quickly to dry them, and attempted to re-focus on the passing trees.  _ I can’t cry again! Not now, not in front of Grunkle Stan! Don’t feel anything, don’t feel any- ... _

“Want to tell me what’s on your mind, Pumpkin?” Stan asked carefully, interrupting Mabel’s thoughts.

Mabel didn’t respond. Fighting down any reflex, she continued to stare out the passenger-side window, her eyes resolutely following the up and down of the cables connecting the utility poles at the side of the road as they passed by. 

Stan tried to get through to her more directly. “Mabel, uh ...  Dipper and I talked last night,” he said, in as gentle a voice as Mabel had ever heard. She couldn’t help but turn and give a meek questioning look at her Grunkle. “Yeah … I know what’s been going on. The two of you and your …” he cleared his throat uncomfortably, “...  _ problems _ ... his addiction, your depression, and … about Thursday evening, too. He told me everything.” Mabel dropped her eyes to her lap and gripped her elbows across her stomach.

“Look, I’m sorry you’re both going through all this,” he pushed on, “but for your sake, I don’t think stuffing it all inside helps. Know what I mean?” 

“Yes ... it does,” Mabel replied tightly. Stan waited patiently for her to continue. “I’ve tried letting it all out ... lots of times. When I do, it doesn’t feel better. It just feels worse! I’m … I’m better off this way,” she said while subtly rocking herself in the passenger seat.

Stan glanced worriedly at his great niece as he pulled the car over on the main street of Gravity Falls. Mabel looked up and saw they were on the more run-down end of downtown, parked across from the Skull Fracture. Stan told Mabel to sit tight, then he got out and crossed the deserted Sunday-morning street, and entered a side door at the rear of the notorious biker bar.

* * *

Santiago was able to supply Stan with a sufficient supply of Methadone to carry Dipper through the holidays, hopefully long enough to allow the teen to completely quit on his own. Stan ground his teeth in irritation because of how much he was forced to shell out for the medication: the low-level gangster had seen how urgently Stan needed the pills on such short notice, and took full advantage of the situation.  _ Not that I wouldn’t have done the same thing, _ he grumbled inwardly as he and Mabel returned to the Shack well ahead of the rest of the family.

_ At least this should be able to do some good for the kid, though, _ he sighed to himself.  _ Mabel, on the other hand …  _ Stan cast a concerned glance at the girl as she dropped limply onto the sofa, looking broken and defeated. His joints creaked as he sat down beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, pulling her comfortingly to himself. They sat in silence for a long moment.

“You want me to turn on the TV?” Stan asked, gesturing to the blank screen in front of them. Mabel’s head slowly shook back and forth.  

Finally, Stan spoke up again. “Mabel … ah, I know this is hard, but have you thought about … well, about moving on?”

He felt Mabel’s shoulder muscles tense. Mabel’s head remained facing forwards towards the dormant television set. “What do you mean?” she replied weakly.

“You  _ know  _ what I mean,” Stan said, trying to be as gentle as possible. “Dipper hinted that you’re not … you know, you’re not  _ together _ together … anymore.” Stan scratched the back of his neck in frustration. “Ugh! I’m just saying, maybe you’ve gotta look at seeing what comes next. Start letting yourself look for … for  _ who _ comes next.” Mabel’s head whipped around, and she leaned away from Stan as she looked up to his face in shock. Stan could see that she obviously had never considered this, and it was an unwelcome suggestion. 

It crushed him, but Stan pressed on. “Come on,  _ think  _ about this, Sweetie! This … this  _ thing  _ with Dipper … you’ve got to know that it can’t work! It isn’t working now! And it’s  _ never  _ going to get easier. You’ve got to start thinking about moving  _ forward! _ Start thinking about the possibility that you can move forward … with someone else, someday.”

Mabel’s face communicated the turmoil of emotions that were raging within her. Stan could tell that there was so much she wanted to say, but couldn’t find the words. Words of anger, frustration, sorrow, fear, longing, and desperation all failed to form on her lips.

Finally, with eyes brimming, one sentence managed to escape. 

“... But … Grunkle Stan … I … I  _ love _ him …”

And Stan knew the discussion was over. A future without her brother was inconceivable, a relationship with anyone else was utterly pointless to think about. Mabel’s simple declaration of her feelings for Dipper was made with such certainty and conviction, mixed with hopeless despair, that Stan knew she simply could not feel any other way. 

He pulled Mabel in for a tight hug. He briefly felt her squeeze him back, and his own tears threatened to surface. Stan was frustrated with seeing his favorite great niece this way. He had no easy answers for what pained her heart, but what he knew of anti-depressants, it didn’t seem logical that they had provided no improvement to her emotional state. He silently wondered if her parents had looked into asking for a change to her medication. 

For the time being, though, all he could do was provide assurance that he would be there for her as best he could.

* * *

The door to the backseat opened as soon as the car came to a stop outside the Mystery Shack. Dipper’s parents were still commenting on the energetic worship service they had just attended. Stepping out quickly, Dipper power-walked into the Shack, silently desperate to see Stan before his parents could join him inside.

He pushed the door open forcefully and immediately focused on the old man, who was already moving towards him. “Grunkle Stan!” he said urgently, his eyes wide, a sweaty hand rubbing his stomach. “Did you get the …” His words trailed off as he looked around.

Stan immediately pulled Dipper back to his office. Once inside, he handed the agitated teen a Methadone capsule and glass of water he had ready, and Dipper quickly downed the pill. “How you holdin’ up, kid?” asked Stan, placing his hand on Dipper’s shoulder.

Dipper unconsciously wiped his nose across the sleeve of his shirt. “I feel like I wanna puke,” he confessed.

Stan grunted in confirmation. “Sounds about right. That pill should kick in quickly, and you’ll start feeling a bit better in about fifteen minutes. What about pain? Did your headaches come back?” 

“A little bit. It’s not all that bad,” Dipper said, accepting the Tylenol that Stan offered. He yawned then finished the glass of water in one long drink.

Stan nodded as he heard the twins’ parents come in through the door. “Maybe you’d better make yourself scarce for the time being,” he said under his breath.

“Yeah,” Dipper whispered back, forcing himself to smile. “Thanks, Grunkle Stan.” He loudly announced to his mother and father that he felt a bit car sick and wanted to lay down, then swiftly climbed the stairs to the attic.

As he entered the chilly bedroom, he immediately noticed that he wasn’t alone. Mabel was already there, sitting on her bed, bundled up in two layers of sweaters and thick fuzzy pants. Her knees were under her chin, her arms securely wrapped around her shins.

“Uh … hi,” Dipper muttered, anxiously sliding his palm over his perspiring forehead and making his way towards the bed on his side of the room.

Mabel glanced over to watch as Dipper gingerly sat down on the edge of the bed, paused, then swung his legs up and groaned as he laid down on his back. Mere seconds later, he was slowly sitting back up again, scratching his scalp with one hand and holding his abdomen with his other arm.

“You okay?” Mabel asked softly.

Dipper forced his hands to stop moving. Without realizing it, one leg immediately started bouncing. “Yeah I’m fine!” he replied, not looking at Mabel. “I just … the car ride back from church … I just started feeling a little sick, and -”

“It’s all right, Dipper. I know,” Mabel interrupted, a sombre list to her voice. “Grunkle Stan told me about how he’s helping you get off your pills.” Her brother’s eyes widened and he took a sharp breath. “Don’t worry.” She turned away and curled up on her side as she continued, “I’m not going to tell on you to Mama and Daddy.”

Dipper started breathing again, the cold temperature, adrenaline, and withdrawal agitation now combining to cause his body to visibly tremble. He forced himself to take deep, slow breaths, trying to calm himself down. Within a few minutes, he was in control of himself. 

_Control. There’s that word again_ , he thought to himself, remembering back to September when he had willingly given himself over, and let happen what he thought God wanted to happen. _Am I in control, or not? Have I calmed myself down, or is it just the Methadone kicking in?_ _Do I believe, or not?_

Across the room, Mabel hadn’t moved. The rest of family was downstairs, preparing for a late lunch. He stared at Mabel’s back. Seeing her in pain was just as painful for him. Every fiber of his being screamed at him to do  _ something! _

Dipper’s faith in the words of the book hidden beneath his bed wavered once again. He swallowed, steeling himself.  _ I don’t have time to wait for whatever help He might provide! Right now, I need to do something, say something. Anything! _

“Mabel?” he said tentatively, waiting for a response. He received none. 

He pushed on. “Mabel, can we … can we please talk about … what happened the other night back home?”

Mabel’s back remained towards her brother. “What’s there to talk about?” she replied softly.

Dipper sighed heavily. “I don’t know,” Dipper moaned, gripping a handful of hair from the back of his head. “You … you really scared me.”

Across the room, there was no response from Mabel. Dipper lowered his gaze to the rough plank floor between their beds. “I never thought you could ever think about stuff like that,” he said. “Like, you … hurting yourself …” His voice trailed off, unable to coherently express his feelings into words. “I just want to help you,” he mumbled, his voice cracking, “I … I don't know what I'd do without you.” 

Dipper lifted his head, hoping for some sign that any of his words were helping. His sister remained motionless.

_ I don't know anything else to say, except …  _ “Mabel … I lo-”

“ _ Don't! _ ” Mabel shot back, her tone filled with anguish. “Just  _ stop! _ Just …” Her voice dropped to a whisper as she rolled onto her back. Her watering eyes were directed up to the attic's rafters. “... Please … I can’t … please just  _ stop _ .”

Dipper felt his chest constrict in pain. He watched, helpless and immobile, as Mabel balled her hands to her eyes, biting her lower lip as now she took her turn to struggle with regaining self control. After a moment to compose herself, she breathed, “I’m sorry, Dipper ... I just can’t do this now.” 

A moment later she resolutely stood, jaw clenched. Without another word or look at her brother, Mabel made her way out the door and down the stairs.

Alone in the attic, Dipper struggled to keep himself from slipping into despair. He rolled over and reached under his bed, grabbing the thick black book. Pushing aside the nausea, he immediately opened it to where he had bookmarked it before he put it away the previous night, and started reading again.

* * *

Immediately after Dipper had dashed up the stairs, Stan joined the twins’ parents in the kitchen. They asked what he and Mabel did all morning, and he smoothly spun a story of the two of them killing time by taking a short drive, just to see the town covered in snow. It was partly true, and there was no reason for Stan to not be believed.

Stan did suggest that he thought that Mabel seemed to be abnormally down in the dumps, especially for being on antidepressants. The parents agreed, lamenting that they missed the Mabel they used to know, and how they thought they were doing what was best for her with the medications. Stan asked them if they had taken Mabel back to her doctor, to check to see if she was responding as should be expected. Her parents guiltily admitted that they had not: they were trying to get back on track with their respective careers after Dipper's hospitalization, and both had put their work ahead of their children since Dipper had come home. They agreed they needed to address the matter as soon as they returned to California after the holidays were over.

The conversation turned to the cause of Mabel’s troubles. Her father noted again that everything seemed to turn for the worse shortly after the twins started high school. He had never managed to figure out what had happened when Mabel’s anger exploded towards Dipper before his hospitalization, nor why she had been so down all the time since before he came home. Her mother wondered if they should perhaps finally stop walking on eggshells around her and get to the bottom of this. Not immediately, of course. But she proposed that the long car ride home would be an excellent uninterrupted time to prod Mabel until she confessed what was wrong. Her husband thought that was a good idea, and that Dipper had much to account for as well.

Stan knew that cornering the kids and forcing them to talk about everything that caused their problems would be a disaster. Before he could think of any way to change their minds, a sullen Mabel emerged from the attic, and her parents whisked her to the table to get some food. Chucking a thumb towards the ceiling, Stan said he’d go up to see if Dipper felt like eating anything for lunch. As he backed out of the kitchen, he knew he had less than two weeks to intervene somehow before the family started their return trip.

Climbing halfway up the stairs and poking his head up to the landing, Stan looked in the bedroom and could see Dipper on his bed laying on his side, a thick book open in front of him. 

“Hey, kid!” he called, causing Dipper’s head to snap towards him. “Want to get something to eat?”

“Uh … not right now,” Dipper replied evasively. “Just give me a few minutes more, and I’ll be okay.” He lowered his voice imperceptibly. “I think it’s kicking in.”

Stan nodded. “Good to hear,” he said, then in a louder voice, “As soon as you’re up to it, drag your sorry carcass down here. Got it, kid?” He gave Dipper a wiley smile.

A grin spread on Dipper’s face. “I got it, Grunkle Stan,” he replied loudly.

As his great uncle went back downstairs, Dipper’s smile disappeared, and he resumed his reading.

* * *

The next couple of days went by somewhat unpleasantly, as far as the twins’ mother and father were concerned. This was despite their best efforts to cheer up their children by giving them time with some summertime friends.

On Monday, Wendy stopped by to visit, showing off the fact she had finally got her driver's licence. The twins’ parents had heard from Mabel long ago about Dipper’s infatuation with the tall redhead, and looked forward to seeing him being all awkward around her. Ultimately they were disappointed to see that their son was completely unphased by Wendy’s appearance. 

Wendy, of course, was cool with any situation, and decided to tell a couple of stories to the twins’ parents of how great their children were, and how much fun they'd had together over the last two summers. She recounted with enthusiasm how Dipper had discovered a secret bunker beneath a tree out in the woods, and how the three of them and Soos had explored it. She was just starting to describe the harrowing security room that almost crushed them all, but noticed the twins’ folks were wide-eyed, and Dipper giving her very small and rapid shakes of his head. Quickly reading the situation, Wendy deftly side-stepped any more dangerous or supernatural details, realizing the twins hadn't told their parents everything that had happened over that crazy first summer. 

She was also not oblivious to the changes she saw in the kids. The last time Wendy had seen the twins was the day before they left for California on the last weekend of summer. They had seemed incredibly alive and happy, almost giddy, that whole final week following their “birthday bash” weekend in Portland. Now her little buds looked like they had the weight of the world on their shoulders. Dipper looked distracted or agitated, as if he were concentrating on some other subject in his mind. And Mabel was slouched and unenergetic, the opposite of what Wendy had ever experienced from her. Wendy’s visit ended awkwardly, amid clumsy Christmas well wishes and fumbled goodbyes.

The following day was Christmas Eve, and the family left Stan at the Shack to travel into town for last-minute shopping, as well as a visit to Soos. The twins’ parents wanted to thank him and his grandmother for taking the twins in when Stan had briefly lost ownership of his home. The lovable handyman was delighted to see his favorite dudes again, and happily introduced himself to Dipper and Mabel’s parents, giving them each a big hug. After also meeting his Abeulita and his girlfriend Melody, who was on vacation from the city, the visit went much like Wendy’s the day before, with the twins being polite but decidedly not themselves. Finally their father determined it was time to head back when Mabel’s lack of enthusiasm and Dipper’s increased fidgeting was becoming a distraction.

“You know, kids, this is starting to wear a bit thin,” said their father from the driver’s seat, sternly addressing the twins through the rear-view mirror as they drove the short route back towards the Shack. “I’m getting pretty tired of this anti-social act you two have going on. It’s not like either of you at all.”

They half looked up as their mother shot a warning look to her husband. “Darling ....” she said quietly. “Not now. Tomorrow is Christmas Day, for goodness sake! It can wait.”

Their father glanced back at his wife, his face set. Then he fired another look at the twins in the mirror and muttered “Alright, fine,” and returned his attention to the road. 

In the backseat, the two teenagers realized that they had temporarily dodged a major bullet. They hadn’t been themselves in months, but now they were finally going to be called out for their behavior. Their father still wanted to get to the bottom of whatever issues were bothering them, and their mother was apparently in agreement. Soon, very soon, they would have to explain themselves. Dipper felt bile rise in his throat, and his leg began bouncing faster as he shakily looked over to Mabel, who had slouched even lower in her seat and turned her head toward her window. Mabel struggled to muster the fortitude to deal with the situation, while Dipper was loathe to face Mabel’s rejection again while still battling withdrawal symptoms. But both knew they had to do something, and had to try getting over being paralyzed by their fears. 

* * *

There were no complaints on Christmas Day. The Pines family spent the day together, enjoying a quiet, peaceful day of unwrapping gifts, eating good food, playing family games, and taking a stroll together in freshly fallen snow. In the evening, the twins’ father retrieved his guitar and led the family in Christmas music. Even Stan joined in on some classic carols as everyone sat and sang around the warm fireplace.

Dipper and Mabel went to bed that evening with a feeling of subdued contentment. For all the turmoil in their lives, the day had been as perfect as could be expected. Dipper took his evening dose of Methadone, continuing his effort to break his addiction. As they bundled themselves under their covers in their beds and Dipper prepared to turn off the lamp, Mabel’s eyes locked with Dipper. For several seconds they stared at one another, Mabel biting her lip, and Dipper blinking uncertainly. Finally, Mabel gave her brother a quick nod, and the edges of Dipper’s mouth turned up slightly. Her eyes closed as Dipper flipped the light switch.

It was a start. Dipper and Mabel knew they were still a team, and they’d get through this. They’d find time in the next couple of days up in their bedroom to quietly work out how to handle their parents. And maybe more than that afterward. They fell asleep feeling positive about something for the first time in a long while.

* * *

“Pumpkin! Come on, wakey wakey!”

“Up and at ‘em, Dip! Come on, let’s go!”

Mabel and Dipper both groaned sleepily, opening bleary eyes to see their parents leaning over them, gently shaking them awake. Dipper’s clock showed that it was just after six in the morning. “What’s going on?” he mumbled as his father stepped back.

“Yeah!” whined Mabel groggily.

Their mother straightened up from where she had been hovering over Mabel, and joined her husband standing between the beds. “We didn’t want to spoil such a wonderful day yesterday by telling you that …” She cast an annoyed look at her husband, “... that we have to go back home.” 

Dipper was instantly wide awake. “What?”

“We leave this morning,” she said sympathetically as she looked from one twin to the other. “We need to pack up and get on the road as soon as we can so we can get home tonight.”

Mabel practically shrivelled. “Now?” she asked weakly.

It was their father’s turn to speak. “I’m sorry, but I got a text from my boss on Monday. Our biggest client needs the new version of our product to ship before the end of the calendar year. It’s all hands on deck, all vacation time after Christmas was cancelled. They  _ wanted  _ me there  _ today _ ! As it is, I’m required to be at my desk tomorrow morning, and I probably won’t get back to the house until it’s done.” He held out his hands. “I’ve got no choice. We have to go.”

“I’m glad we didn’t tell you, because we had such a beautiful Christmas Day,” their mother continued. “But it means we’ve got to get going now. So … we’re very sorry, but … chop chop! On your feet, mateys!” she cried, attempting enthusiasm.

Dipper could feel himself starting to hyperventilate, but struggled to contain his panic. “But … but what abou-”

“No ‘buts’,” interrupted his father. “This isn’t up for debate, and the clock is ticking. We have too much packing and a lot of driving to do today. Get up, now!” he said, his tone becoming more authoritarian as he looked at his children’s crestfallen faces. “I’m sorry kids, but there is  _ nothing  _ else we can do.”

Another voice spoke up. “Maybe there is.”

Everyone turned to the attic bedroom door. Standing in his bathrobe and slippers, an over-tired Stan held himself up with one hand on the door frame.

“Kid,” he said, addressing his adult nephew, “just … let ‘em stay here for the rest of the holidays!”

Mabel sniffed hopefully. “Really?” she asked.

“Oh, Stanley,” the twins’ mother said. “That’s very generous of you, but-”

“Yeah, it is,” Stan deadpanned. “I surprise myself sometimes with how  _ generous  _ I am.”

Dipper piped up. “ _ I’d _ be okay with staying!”

“Uncle Stan,” their father replied quickly, “you’ve taken them in enough times already. We can’t ask you to-”

“Fine! Then  _ I’ll  _ ask  _ you! _ ” Stan shot back. “Can you  _ please  _ leave the kids here, while you two go home? Maybe then you can all stop yapping, you two can finish packing your stuff, and I can go back to bed until you’re ready to go! All right?”

Dipper and Mabel didn’t have to act. Their faces bore the most desperate, pleading expressions possible as their parents turned to look at them for confirmation. 

* * *

Two hours later, the Pines family car was moving out the driveway of the Mystery Shack. Stan watched it go from the front porch, flanked on either side by a young teenager. Soon the sound of the car faded completely, and an uncomfortable silence fell on the three.

“OK, kids,” Stan finally grunted. “You got lucky, and now’s your chance. You’ve got a little more than a week. Work it out yourself if you want. Or if you need me to help, that works too. You’re brother and sister, and you’ve got to figure out if that’s all you are. But whatever happens, you’d better figure it out  _ for sure _ this time before you get on the bus a week from Saturday.” 

Stan turned around and headed in the door. “It’s cold out, I’m going inside. Let me know if you need me.” 

He closed the door, leaving Dipper and Mabel alone standing on the top step, looking uncertainly at each other.

* * *


	11. Chapter 11

* * *

Stan was just settling into his favorite armchair, his head turning towards the front door as it opened. Dipper and Mabel slowly came in off the front porch from the cold air outside. They had remained outdoors for only a moment after his strategic retreat. He directed a pointed look at them. 

There was a short pause. “We’re-” Dipper began, glancing with cautious optimism at his twin, “We’re going to the attic. We’re going to try to talk about this … right, Mabel?” 

Mabel turned her head to Dipper and nodded. Though her face was expressionless, Stan noticed that she responded quickly and made eye contact with her brother.

“Hey kid,” Stan called to Dipper. “You should have a dose of your Methadone first. Stay here for a minute while I get it.” He struggled out of his chair and waved to Mabel. “Go on up, Pumpkin,” he told her with a grin. “Maybe I’ll coat his meds in that … what’s it called … Smile Dip stuff? Think that’ll help him?” He saw a twinkle in Mabel’s eyes, mirroring Dipper’s hopeful expression. He thought he could detect a hint of a smile as she glanced at Dipper, then she turned and went up the staircase.

After returning to the living room with a pill and a glass of water, Stan eyed Dipper as the medication was quickly downed. “How’re you feeling, kid?” he asked.

“Better, thanks,” Dipper replied, his gaze locked on the stairs.

“Hey!” Stan said sharply, snapping his fingers in front of Dipper’s face. Startled, the teen focused on his great uncle. “Whatever you think you want to happen, just .. be careful, okay? You’ve both been through a lot, and all that crap doesn’t just go away because your parents aren’t here right now,” he explained, hoping he was appearing supportive and understanding.

Dipper nodded. “I got it, Grunkle Stan.” Stan squeezed his nephew’s shoulder, then watched as Dipper trotted to the attic stairs and climbed them quickly. 

The old man shook his head sadly. The twins were in an unimaginably difficult position for two young teenagers. He hoped they would both realize that it would be better for them to let go of their forbidden affair, and the sooner, the better. But there was no point in beating them over the head with his opinion on that: they already knew his feelings on the matter of their relationship. He sunk back into the chair and rested the side of his head in his palm, frustrated at his inability to really help them.

* * *

“So … “ Dipper asked slowly, his shoulders rigid and hands in his pockets. He waited awkwardly, leaning back against the closed door to their attic bedroom. “Wh- … what happens now?”.

Mabel twisted a handful of her hair as she sat on the edge of her bed. Then she looked up, a conflicted mixture of anxiety and hope in her expression.. “You could … come sit beside me?”

Dipper crossed the floor and stopped a few feet away from Mabel.  _ How do I handle this? _ he thought, wondering what the best way would be to navigate between the eggshells of their relationship. He decided to perch himself a discreet distance from Mabel with his hands clasped in his lap, his uncertainty of how to proceed still apparent. 

After a long moment, Mabel gently placed the back of her hand on the bedspread between herself and Dipper. Glancing up to see a brave, tiny smile on Mabel’s face. Dipper gulped and lightly placed his sweating palm in hers. 

Instantly, both twins experienced a surge of hormones at the touch, the first affectionate contact between them in months. Their fingers carefully locked together, then gripped tightly. Dipper drew a shaky lungful of air. “I’ve …  _ really  _ missed you,” he confessed quietly.

Mabel could not prevent the sudden hitch in her breathing. “I … miss you … too …” she whispered between quiet gasps.

Dipper’s insides ached to see the moisture building up in his sister’s eyes, the quivering of her lip. He immediately reached across to cup the side of her face, his thumb intercepting the first salty trickle that rolled down her cheek. His vision blurred from his own tears that fought to escape his eyes.

Slowly the twins leaned towards one another, their hands still joined between them, both of them struggling to not buckle under the tremendous weight of the moment. Then their lips brushed against each other, and they were unable to hold it back any longer. Mabel began keening, lightly at first, then harder as she lost all control. Dipper’s cries were no less intense. Pulling themselves closely into one another, they crushed the sides of their heads together and wept unabashedly, their bodies shaking from the sobs that wracked their chests.

Neither of them had any idea how many minutes passed as they held one another. They had spent over three months living physically close but divided by a cavernous distance. That chasm was the opposite of this brief but complete intimacy, and the literal lifetime of mutual comfort and support they had shared before. There was no hurry for the healing moment to end. As the sobs and cries faded to sniffles and hiccups, and finally to deep sighs of relief, Dipper and Mabel simply clutched each other securely, feeling as though they might never let go.

“I love you, Dipper,” Mabel murmured into his ear.

Dipper squeezed harder for a moment. “I love you too,” he whispered back with sincerity. He relaxed his hold and caressed his lips on Mabel’s neck. She gasped softly as Dipper backed off slowly and gently placed small kisses on her cheek and jaw. Soon his mouth reached hers, and this time when their lips touched, they hungrily forced them together. 

Repressed desires boiled to the surface. Mabel pushed Dipper down to the bed as the feverish passion of their kisses continued to escalate. Fingers ran firmly through hair and over clothed arms and backs while they made noises of loving affection and growing arousal.

Mabel’s head inched back, her trademark huge smile plastered on her face as her lips parted from Dipper’s. “Holy guacamole dip, Dip!” she panted, gazing down into her brother’s eyes. “That was amazing!”

It had been far too long since Dipper had heard a silly turn of phrase from his sister, to witness happiness and joy in her again. He completely failed to suppress an outburst of relieved laughter. Mabel gave him a mock-angry stare for a second, then smirked and lightly smothered his sheepish grin. 

After several more short kisses, Mabel sighed in satisfaction and relaxed completely atop Dipper, allowing him to hold her in a loose, comforting embrace.

“I think we  _ really  _ needed this,” Dipper mumbled contentedly into Mabel’s neck while lightly stroking her hair and back.

Mabel nodded. “Yup-pers!” she replied quietly. “ _ Total _ agreement with you there, Broseph.” She took a deep breath and let it all back out. “This feels too good to have held back for so long!”

Dipper nodded back lightly. “Yeah. It was pretty lucky for us that Mom and Dad went home without us this morning.” He tenderly kissed Mabel’s neck, eliciting a soft hum from his twin. “I don’t want to  _ think  _ about how bad that return trip would have been today if Stan hadn’t let us stay.”

“It would have been  _ awful! _ ” Mabel agreed, considering in her head how the long trip in the family’s minivan would likely have gone. “We were  _ not _ ready for the great ‘Van’ish Inquisition. The ‘Stan’ish Inquisition is a way better option!” Dipper chuckled as she lifted and turned her head back to look down on him, their noses rubbing together. “But now we’ll be ready by the end of next week.”

Dipper tried to banish his feelings of concern that immediately flooded over him. “I hope so,” he replied, averting his eyes.

“Hey!” Mabel scolded him playfully. “You just said you didn’t want to think about it. So stop your thinkin’! We’ve got more than a whole week before we go back, so we’ve got  _ plenty _ of time!” A gentle kiss landed on Dipper’s lips. “Things are going to be  _ so  _ different when we get back to Piedmont.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Dipper morosely.

A questioning look crossed Mabel’s face. “Yeah you know …  _ what _ , Dip? … I don’t get it.”

“Going back home, after having this week,” Dipper replied, still not looking directly at Mabel. “It’s just gonna be rough. You know, when … when we have to go back to the way things were.”

Mabel’s questioning expression froze. Moments passed before Dipper brought himself back and realized his twin had fallen silent. He tried to read her face.

“The way … things  _ were? _ ” Mabel repeated slowly, her face inscrutable. 

An alarm began to sound in Dipper’s brain. His sister was normally an emotional open book. It was fairly simple for complete strangers to know her moods, and ordinarily it was child’s play for him since he knew her so well. But at that moment, Mabel was blank. 

“Well … yeah,” Dipper said with caution. “I mean … it’s  _ great _ that we have this time here … but when we get home …” Dipper’s voice trailed off as he saw the worry growing in Mabel’s features.

“Wait,” Mabel said, pushing herself up and sitting astride Dipper. “... aren’t we …  _ changing _ things here?” she asked carefully. “I thought  _ this _ -” she waved forward and backward, indicating their closeness together, “-meant that all the poop we’ve been through is  _ over  _ ... doesn’t it?”

“Absolutely! There’s no poop, this is a poop-free zone, Mabel!” Dipper agreed, forcing a smile and trying to bring some levity back to their talk.

It didn’t work. Mabel quickly glanced around the attic of the Shack. “ _ This _ is a poop-free zone, you’re saying,” she repeated in a neutral tone. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then her focus returned to Dipper. “What  _ exactly _ do you think we’re doing here, Dipper?”

“Uh … um ...” Dipper stammered, “... m- making up with each other?”

Mabel struggled to stay positive. “Okay, I’d like that ... I  _ want _ us to make up, but-”

“I want that too!” Dipper interrupted her urgently, reaching up quickly to palm Mabel’s face in his hands. “And we can! All the time we’ve wanted to spend together, all the things we’ve wanted to, you know ...  _ do _ together … we have the chance now! There’s nothing to stop us here!”

“But … you can’t want to make up if you … if you don’t want to  _ stay _ made up,” she replied, fumbling for the right words. “And that means that we stay made up when we go back down to California.” Mabel took Dipper’s hands from her face and squeezed them while staring down into his eyes, hoping she didn’t hear the response she feared. “Right?”

Dipper squeezed Mabel’s hands in return, wanting very much for her to not be unreasonable. “Mabes … when we get back home, you know we … we  _ can’t _ do any of this stuff there!”

“Oh for …” Mabel cried out in frustration, yanking her hands free and climbing off of Dipper as fast as she could. She stood and turned to face the bed as Dipper scrambled to sit up. “I don’t believe this! You’re already planning on  _ breaking up _ with me!  _ Again! _ ”

“Mabel, I would  _ never _ break up with you!” Dipper exclaimed, trying to stand up off the bed.

She leaned in aggressively, forcing Dipper back down. “You  _ already have _ once before! Doesn’t any of this sound familiar to you? How could you forget what you did that night?”

Dipper spread his hands “ _ Of course  _ I remember that night!” he shot back defensively. “It was the same night that Mom and Dad came home early and came  _ this _ close to catching us naked together in your room! You think that was  _ okay? _ ” 

“Don’t be stupid!” fired back Mabel. “We  _ didn’t _ get caught, but you  _ still _ decided to tell me we couldn’t be together anymore!  _ You  _ decided we wouldn’t be  _ anything  _ to each other anymore! How was that  _ not _ breaking up with me?”

“I never … I mean ... “ Dipper sputtered desperately, “... I never meant for you to feel that I didn’t  _ want _ to be with you, or that you would feel like I  _ broke up _ with you! Mabel …” He took a deep breath, “… I  _ love _ you!”

Mabel blew air through her lips derisively. “Yeah, right! You got a heck of a way of  _ showing _ it!” she grunted as she folded her arms over her chest. “How can you say you love me when you don't want to experience what it’s all about?”

“I don't want to  _ experience _ it?” Dipper argued, sounding hurt. “I thought … Mabel, I thought there was more to us than just …  _ physical  _ stuff. Is that the only thing you miss about our relationship? Kissing? And … and sex?”

“Of course not!” Mabel cried, taking several backwards steps. “You don’t  _ get _ it! Love means  _ being there _ for each other, in every way we need each other! Sometimes … okay yeah, sometimes that means we do the physical stuff, but … that’s only  _ part  _ of it! We need to be able to talk, and feel … and support, and … and  _ confide  _ … and  _ protect _ , and …  _ AUUUGGGH! _ ” She buried her face in her hands. 

Dipper slouched meekly. “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand, Mabel. I’ve … I’ve  _ always  _ been there for you!” he said softly. 

Mabel gripped her elbows, holding herself tightly. “Not since September, you haven’t!” she cried. “Ever since that night you got trapped under the bed, you’ve been too scared to do anything with me  _ at all! _ We’re like strangers under the same roof!”

“I never-” Dipper began, then stopped and thought for a moment, remembering his own hurt feelings and desire for isolation he’d felt since everything blew up between them. “Okay … I see what you’re saying … and I’m sorry. I can … I can do better! I can figure out how to go back to being a really good brother-”

“I need you to be  _ more  _ than my brother, Dipper!” Mabel exclaimed miserably. “A lover isn’t just a brother! I  _ need  _ more than that from you now! Just being my brother …” She hung her head as her voice trailed off.

For a long, uncomfortable moment, neither twin said anything. Dipper slowly stood and stepped close to Mabel, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Mabel, please believe me when I tell you that I  _ do _ love you. More than I ever have! And I’m here, right now, telling you that no matter where we are, I’m always going to feel that way!”

He paused awkwardly as his sister’s eyes remained on the floor. “But … when we aren’t in a safe place, if doing something or saying the wrong thing could really mess things up for us … I don’t like it, but I  _ have _ to bury how I really feel! And so do you! It’s just too much of a risk!” 

Mabel twisted out from under Dipper’s hand, turning her back and marching off to the other side of the room. Dipper kept after her. “C’mon Mabel! We  _ talked  _ about this with Grunkle Stan at the end of the summer! If we don’t stop, we’ll get caught, and then there’s no telling what Mom and Dad might do! We  _ have _ to make it look like we’re just a normal brother and sister when we’re at home!”

“ _ I can’t do that! _ ” screeched Mabel as she spun around to face Dipper. “Maybe you haven’t been paying attention, but I haven’t been doin’ so hot since summer ended!” Her composure continued to crumble. “I knew the  _ first morning _ I couldn’t do it! I was only  _ acting _ like I was okay! And I couldn’t leave it alone when Daddy and Mama went out to their Bible study! And then everything … just went  _ kablooey _ , and then ...“ She sobbed violently and stamped one foot hard. “ _ It’s only been four months, Dipper! How are we supposed to keep going like this for four more YEARS?!? Or LONGER?! _ ”

Dipper looked pleadingly at Mabel. “I’ll  _ help  _ you, Mabel. We’ve … somehow we’ve  _ got _ to get through this!”

“It’s too hard!” she said miserably. “This is  _ torture _ , to be so close to you, but not able to  _ reach _ you … to know that we had so much, and it’s  _ gone _ , but also it’s  _ not _ , and you’re … you're _ right there EVERY SINGLE DAY  _ …” Mabel balled her fists at her sides. “Maybe  _ you  _ can do this, but  _ I can’t! _ ”

“Yes, you can!” Dipper replied loudly, starting to lose patience with his sister, thinking that she wasn’t really making her best effort to get past this. Irritation seeped into his voice. “Mabel please, you have to try!”

“ _ I HAVE tried!! _ ” Mabel almost screamed back. “I can’t  _ stand _ it! And if you can, well … maybe I’m not as strong as you are! Or …” her tone turned pitiful, “or maybe you just don’t feel the same way about me as I do about you!”

Darkness flashed across Dipper’s face. “ _ Seriously _ , Mabel?” he fumed. “You don’t know  _ what  _ I’m feeling inside! I did what I had to do to  _ protect  _ us, so that I didn’t lose you  _ for real _ , and …” He tried and failed to suppress a roar of exasperation, grabbing two fistfuls of his thick hair and pulling hard in frustration as he paced to the opposite side of the room. 

The instant the next thought popped into his head, he knew he shouldn’t say it aloud. But his adolescent anger got the better of him. “I got the  _ shit  _ kicked out of me over what happened between us! If anyone’s suffered because of all this, it’s  _ me! _ Do you ever consider that?” He bowed his head and turned his back. “If you don’t think I love you, maybe you should just … find yourself another boyfriend,” he growled bitterly.

Silence was the only reply he got, and he reluctantly turned around. Mabel’s face was a mask of horrified disgust. Several heartbeats went by, her mouth opening and closing, her entire body quivering in fear and rage. Finally she found her voice. “How could you  _ say _ that?” she squeaked. “How could you even  _ think _ that about me?”

“ _ You _ kinda said the same thing,” Dipper grumbled, a part of his stubborn nature refusing to back down.

“ _ What?! _ ” Mabel shot back, almost hysterical. “You think that what  _ I _ said was even  _ close _ to-” Her mouth snapped shut, fury burning in her eyes. “You know what?  _ Forget it! _ Just forget it! I’m  _ done! _ ” She stormed past an immobile Dipper towards the attic door. After throwing it open and stepping over the threshold, she stopped short and turned back, marching towards Dipper’s side of the room

Dipper sighed with resignation. “You’re done with  _ what _ , Mabel?” 

His sister ignored him, going straight to Dipper’s suitcase and proceeded to begin rifling through his things. He made no effort to stop her. “What’re you looking for?” he asked sullenly, again receiving no response.

Finally she grabbed the suitcase and flipped it upside down, spilling the contents across the floor. She glared at Dipper dangerously, her voice dripping with venom. “Where’s the Oxy? Where are your pills?”

All traces of Dipper’s selfish demeanour immediately disappeared, along with all the color from his face. “Mabel, just wait a min-”

“ _ Where ARE they!? _ ” she demanded hotly.

“I don’t  _ have _ them!” he hissed, trying to keep his voice down even as he felt panic boiling up inside him. “I gave them all to Stan!”

“ _ BULLSHIT!! _ ” she fired back, shocking Dipper further with her extremely rare use of profanity. “You must have kept some back from him, hid them somewhere else! I want them  _ NOW! _ ”

“I don’t have any, I  _ swear! _ ” Dipper pleaded, thankful he was being truthful. He was frantically trying to think of how to defuse this increasingly out-of-control situation.

Mabel coldly sized up the sincerity in her brother’s expression. “ _ Fine! _ ” she barked, and directed her attention up to the exposed rafters and beams above them in the attic. “That’s  _ plenty  _ high! I’ll just go find a rope, loop it around one of those things, tie one end around my neck, and that’ll be that! Now get  _ out _ of my way!” She again strode purposefully towards the door. 

Dipper caught her by the elbow. “Mabel!  _ Please! _ ” he begged, as she tugged her arm impatiently. “Just … you’ve just got to  _ stop _ for a second!” he exclaimed, trying to readjust his hold with both hands. With a determined grunt and a strong twist of her arm, Mabel broke his grip and bolted for the door. 

“Mabel NO!” Dipper yelled, lunging after her in a desperate attempt to tackle her. But he only managed to grab the shoulder of her sweater, and she stayed on her feet.

“Let  _ go! _ ” Mabel snarled as she reached to wrench his hand away. Dipper managed to close his grip tightly on her wrist, spinning Mabel around to face him. 

_ I just need her to stop and calm down. She has to listen to me _ , he thought. “Mabel …” he implored through gritted teeth, trying to snare her other arm as she violently twisted her body, attempting to free herself.

Before he could get hold, Mabel swung her free arm around to hit Dipper, the flat of her hand landing solidly on his bicep. “ _ Let GO! _ ” she repeated louder, thrashing wildly. Again, Dipper could not block Mabel’s swing, a second strike catching him painfully on his shoulder. 

Having no intention of hitting back, Dipper quickly determined he had to force Mabel to the floor, where he hoped he might be able to safely restrain her. He grunted with effort as he shifted all his weight to his opposite leg to knock them both off balance, and pulled down on her one wrist as hard as he could. The move worked, and in a second or two they would both be off their feet. 

But he also succeeded in throwing off Mabel’s aim, just as her free arm was cocked for a third blow.

“ _ I said let me GO!! _ ” she screamed, swinging with all her strength, intending to pound Dipper's shoulder again. But as she started being pulled off balance, Mabel's open palm instead struck the side of Dipper's face at full power, connecting flush across his cheek from jaw to temple.

Dipper saw the impact coming, but had no time to even brace himself. He heard a sickening “smack” noise, and a very brief flash of intense pain exploded in his head as his concussion-sensitive brain was rattled inside his skull. The sight of Mabel's enraged face in front of him was quickly overwhelmed by blinding light, and then there was nothing.

* * *

From downstairs, Stan had been hearing the rising volume in the kids’ voices. He couldn’t make out what they were saying, but it was obvious things weren’t going well. Then their bedroom door at the top of the stairs was opened, and he heard Mabel yelling frantically and swearing. 

That was enough for Stan. As he willed his aching muscles to propel him up the stairs as fast as they could get him there, he heard sounds of physical struggle, along with Mabel screaming for Dipper to let her go. He appeared in the doorway just in time to see Mabel deliver a devastatingly hard slap to the side of Dipper’s face. The crack of skin striking skin echoed around the attic as the twins both fell into a heap.

“ _ Jeez! _ ” he shouted, leaning over and easily pulling Mabel up off the floor. One glance at Dipper, splayed out on his back, told him all that he needed to know.  _ Shit! She knocked the kid out cold! _

Stan needed to attend to him, but he also had to deal with Mabel. His niece's eyes were hysterical, but the rest of her was frozen.  _ She’s in shock _ , he thought.  _ Good, at least she probably won’t do anything more at this point.  _ She didn't resist as he firmly lowered her to sit on the floor. “Don’t move!” he ordered directly into her face, then turned to crouch over Dipper. 

He carefully slid a hand under the boy’s head and checked his breathing, verifying that it was regular, although a bit shallow. A moment later, Stan exhaled in relief as Dipper’s eyes fluttered open and he began panting harder. His stare was glassy, and he started to thrash. “M- … Mabel …” he moaned.

“Woah woah woah,” Stan said softly, carefully but firmly holding Dipper down and keeping his nephew’s head from shaking from side to side. “You got your bell rung pretty good there, kid! Just keep still.” Dipper quickly relaxed. “Good … good.” Stan’s gruff voice managed to sound amazingly soothing.

Dipper's eyes darted back and forth. “Mabel?” he called out louder, then winced as he squeezed his face muscles tightly in obvious pain.

“She's right here,” Stan replied reassuringly. Keeping his support of Dipper's head steady, he shuffled himself around so that he was no longer kneeling between the twins. “Mabel's not going anywhere.” He turned his head and directly addressed the girl. “Isn't that right?” he asked pointedly.

Mabel’s expression had not changed. Sitting with her back against the wall beside the door, she was hugging her knees tightly to her chest and was staring wide-eyed out the small window on the other side of the room. She seemed to be unaware that she was gingerly cradling the hand that she had hit Dipper with. Still, she nodded in reply to Stan’s question.

Stan gave his head a shake.  _ Damn, these two are quite a pair _ , he mused sadly.

* * *

Mabel couldn’t watch as Grunkle Stan helped Dipper to his feet. Instead she buried herself in Sweatertown, forced to listen to Dipper’s groans of pain as he shuffled his way to his bed, supported by their uncle.

_ How has it gotten this bad? _ she wondered. Her hand was throbbing badly, every beat of her heart sending a jab of pain from her wrist right up to the tips of all four of her fingers. But she knew her discomfort paled to what Dipper was going through.  _ I got angry again. And I hurt Dipper. Again! _ Mabel idly pondered if this cycle of bitterness and injury was all that she and her brother were destined to experience together. 

Obliquely, she was aware of Stan’s uncharacteristically gentle ministrations on the other side of the room. “Easy, kid,” Stan said quietly as Dipper sat down carefully. “Just take it slow. Swing your legs up while I hold your noggin.” A split-second pitiful whine escaped as Dipper laid down with his uncle’s assistance. “You should rest. And you’ll need something for pain. I know you’re trying to get off them, but now’s when you  _ should _ take one or two of your Oxycontin pills.” He addressed his niece over his shoulder, not turning around. “Sweetie, Dipper’s pain meds are in my office. Go down and look in-”

“ _ No! _ ” moaned Dipper urgently, his hand gripping Stan’s arm.

The old man looked down with a crooked smile. “Don’t be a hero, kid! A couple of your Oxy now won’t bring back your addiction, not as long as-”

Dipper weakly shook his head. “Not that … it’s just …wherever you’re keeping the pills …” He voice dropped to a whisper, but it was still loud enough to carry across the attic. “...  _ you can’t let Mabel know where they are! _ ”

The old man turned to look at Mabel and her withdrawn state, and then slouched as he understood the reason for the fight before he got upstairs. “Ah, crap!” he muttered. “All right, I’ll get them. Suck it up for a minute, okay?” he told Dipper, patting his nephew’s shoulder. At Dipper’s small nod, Stan straightened and then approached Mabel. He eased himself down onto the floor and leaned back against the wall beside the despondent girl. Her head remained buried inside her oversized knitted sweater.

Stan broke the short silence. “You gotta talk to me, Pumpkin,” he said softly. “Tell me what’s going on.”

The sweater-encased lump shrugged. “Nothing,” came the glum reply.

Grasping her lightly by the back of the neck, Stan gave Mabel a little shake. “Not good enough, you little munchkin,” he growled with good-natured admonishment. Then more seriously, he gently continued, “Look … I need to know that you’re safe right now.”

Mabel sighed. “I’m not gonna do anything, Grunkle Stan,” she mumbled, her voice muffled from within the thick garment. “I let myself feel happy.  _ Big  _ mistake! Like I said before, when I don’t keep all the stupid junk stuffed inside, everything just comes back on me, only worse.” Her head slowly emerged until the neck of the sweater snapped down below her chin. “Then .... when I get frustrated, I guess I say dumb stuff … And  _ do _ even dumber stuff.” She took a deep breath and released it in a “whoosh”, finally half-looking at her uncle. “I’m okay now.”

Stan grunted noncommittally. “Good,” he replied, struggling back to his feet. “But just the same, you’re hanging out with me for the rest of this morning, all right?” he said, extending a hand to Mabel. She nodded once and took the offered hand, allowing Stan to pull her upright. 

He turned back to Dipper. “I'll be back up in a minute, kid.” The boy moaned back a quiet acknowledgement. 

Mabel vacantly stood beside her uncle, her throbbing hand tucked into an armpit, the other hand occupied with kneading a large quantity of her long brown hair. In her peripheral vision she could see Stan waiting, giving her an opportunity to say something to her brother.

But she couldn't do it. Without another word or a look back, she shuffled out the door and down the stairs.

Dropping limply to the sofa, she set her mind to the task of once again building up emotional barriers in her brain. The walls seemed to be getting weaker every time they collapsed.

* * *

Dipper was hurting almost as much because of Mabel’s rejection of him as he was from his new head trauma. When Stan reappeared upstairs minutes later with two Oxycontin tablets, he didn’t hesitate to accept them, and he fell asleep quickly after the effects of the pills kicked in. The familiar opiate high had thankfully faded almost entirely by the time he woke up in the afternoon.

He made his way downstairs, hungry and a bit woozy, and with only a small headache. Stan verified that it was very doubtful Dipper had suffered any additional concussion damage, and checked the welt that had grown on the side of the boy’s face from the force of Mabel's slap. Dipper agreed with his uncle that there was little benefit to seeing a doctor, and doing so would only raise difficult questions as to how the injury occurred. 

Once again, Dipper was forced to figuratively tip-toe around Mabel. She obviously wanted to be alone, and he gave her the space. While his sister half-heartedly began knitting yet another sweater with the new yarn she’d received for Christmas, Dipper slouched over his new tablet. It was a very quiet afternoon in the Shack: what little conversation that occurred was initiated by Stan between himself and his niece or nephew. 

The evening meal was equally awkward. Mabel retreated upstairs after she had eaten a small amount off of her plate, leaving Dipper alone with his uncle. 

Stan pushed a Methadone capsule and two Tylenols across the table. “How are the cravings now?” he asked.

Dipper shrugged as he popped the pills into his mouth and washed them down. “Not  _ too  _ bad,” he replied unenthusiastically. “I don’t think they’re worse than yesterday.”

“Good,” Stan nodded. “I bet you’ll have it all under control by next weekend. Even after your little adventure this morning.” Dipper sighed and leaned on his elbow lower over his plate, idly moving the food around with his fork. Stan lightly cuffed Dipper on his non-bruised shoulder. “So what happened up there?”

Dipper swallowed another mouthful of water. “The same thing that happened back home, a couple of weeks after school started. She flipped out when I said that nothing can happen between the two of us when we go back to Piedmont. Why can’t-” Dipper wearily massaged his temples, “... why can’t she understand that this is the  _ only  _ way we can be together?”

The question hung between them. Stan adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat. “Dipper … I don’t think it’s her fault. I don’t know that she  _ can  _ do what you’re asking her to do.” At Dipper’s confused look, Stan continued, “I’m sure you can control the way you’re feeling. Well, you  _ think _ you can control it. Enough to get by, anyways. But Mabel’s not like that, kid! She’s an open book, and she knows it. You can’t expect her to be able to just bottle everything up inside her.”

“But … but she  _ has _ to-” Dipper stammered.

“She  _ can’t! _ ” Stan interjected. “C’mon, kid! You’ve got a brain in that head! Listen to her.  _ Look _ at her! Look at everything that’s happened since the summer. Don’t you see how it’s affecting her? Can you say that  _ either _ of you are better off now than you were before your birthday? Do you honestly see any way it gets any better, if you keep going the way you’re going?”

Dipper’s face was quivering, but to his credit his voice was steady. “Grunkle Stan, are you … are you saying that I need to completely …  _ break things off _ with Mabel? Just …  _ give up _ on us?”

Stan’s eyes blinked closed for a long moment, and he took a pained breath. “... Yeah … jeez, I feel terrible about this, but I guess that  _ is _ what I’m saying,” he replied, looking back at his nephew’s crushed expression. 

“At the end of summer, you two agreed with me that you had to back things off. Now I see what happened. You may not be a couple, but both of you really still believe you  _ need _ to be together. You’re handling it differently, but it’s the same problem.” Stan reached out and put a hand on Dipper’s shoulder. “You don’t have to stop caring about her. She’ll still be your sister, your best friend, probably the most important thing in the world to you. You’re supposed to love your sister.” His grip tightened. “But you’re not supposed to be  _ in _ love with her. Having each other  _ that  _ way is  _ never _ going to work. I tried to tell Mabel a few days ago, now I’m telling you. You’ve got to …  _ move on! _ You  _ both _ have to!”

Part of Dipper was furious at his uncle for the things he was saying, and wanted to lash out.  _ No! He can’t tell us to break up! We love each other, and Stan is NOT going to break us apart!  _ But another part saw the terrible logic of Stan’s suggestion.  _ But what if we can’t get past all this crap? What then?  _ He hated to admit it to himself, but he could see some wisdom in what Stan was telling him.

But while he obliquely considered how he might accept the notion of letting go of how he felt, he was more concerned with his twin. “But … what about how this would affect Mabel? This morning she went crazy when she only  _ thought _ I was going to break up with her. What would she do if I really meant it? She threatened to  _ kill _ herself just this morning!”

Stan was now less sure of how good his advice was. “I’ll be there with you, to keep her safe,” he said, trying to sound reassuring. “Look … don’t do anything tonight. I think you both should have a night’s rest before you try to work anything out. I’ll think of a way to soften the blow. We’ll get a fresh start in the morning, you know?”

“Yeah, okay,” Dipper said. He scratched his arm nervously. “I don’t think sleeping in the same room as Mabel tonight is going to be very comfortable for her.”  _ Or for me either, _ he thought. “Maybe I could sleep in Great Uncle Ford’s room?”

“Good idea,” agreed Stan. “Your parents left the bed made up, so that’s no problem.” 

They walked together towards the formerly-secret room that Soos had discovered the previous year. Dipper stopped short at the base of the staircase. “I need to get some stuff from the attic, and … I need to say goodnight to Mabel,” he said quietly.

Stan turned. “Want me to come up with you?” he asked carefully.

Dipper shook his head. “I’ll be fine, Grunkle Stan.” 

He started up the stairs. “ _ We’ll _ be fine,” he amended, talking to himself. Dipper needed some time to think, and retreating to a room of his own seemed like the best idea.  _ I don’t know if Stan’s right, but I can’t dismiss it _ , he thought sadly.  _ I can’t imagine having to destroy everything Mabel and I have together, but maybe I have to. _

As he reached the top step, he hoped that the two of them could complete a brief interaction together without further drama. When his light knocks went unanswered, Dipper opened the bedroom door. Mabel was turned away from the door and laying on her side, arms tucked under her head.

“Hey, uh ... I know my being up here would be … kinda weird for you,” said Dipper after he stepped to the middle of the floor. “I thought I’d sleep downstairs. Just for tonight, okay?” Mabel didn’t reply, but she nodded her head. “Okay,” Dipper repeated gently. After he gathered up his sleeping shorts, a notepad and pen, and two books, he glanced with discomfort towards his sister’s bed. “Well … I guess … I’ll see you tomorrow,” he mumbled as he shuffled back towards the door.

Mabel half turned over as Dipper reached the other side of the room. “Dipper?” she called out meekly.

Dipper stopped with his hand on the door knob. “Yeah?” he replied, turning his head back towards her.

“I … I’m sorry,” Mabel stammered, looking down. “... Is your head okay?”

Shrugging his shoulders, Dipper rubbed his head without thinking. “It’ll be fine. And … I’m sorry too.” A corner of his mouth twitched. “Is your  _ hand _ okay?”

Mabel half-grimaced. “Yeah.” She managed to return Dipper’s nearly imperceptible smile. “You have a really hard head, you know?”

“Thanks … I think,” he replied with small ironic amusement, unable to resist bantering with his sister, regardless of how awkward the situation. 

A long moment of silence fell on them again. Dipper shifted, indicating he was about to turn back to the door, when Mabel again spoke up. “I’d understand if …” she began, followed by another uncomfortable pause.

“What?” Dipper prodded, waiting motionless.

Mabel deliberately looked away. “I was thinking back to that day at the Mystery Fair, when we met that time travel guy. And how his tape measure gizmo was able to take us back in time so you could change things and try to make things better.” Dipper waited while Mabel gathered her thoughts. “And I was thinking that if we saw him now, if you could change things again … I’d understand if you went back to make it so … we never went to Portland for our birthday.”

Dipper’s knees almost buckled. The memories of the events of their life-changing birthday in late August flooded over him. The embarrassing but authentic sparks of attraction. The mutual self-realizations of their intense feelings. Their confessions of love for one another. Giving their virginities to one another in a perfect night of lovemaking. He realized the suggestion that he could erase it all from ever happening was … horrifying! It gave him a genuine taste of what it might feel like to actually put an end to their relationship, as Stan had suggested minutes earlier. The revelation made him feel sick, that he could even consider a course of action that felt so  _ wrong  _ now.

“No,” he muttered almost inaudibly, “I couldn’t do that.”

“But isn’t all this worse?” Mabel asked. “What if none of this ever happened to us? We’d be  _ normal  _ kids again. We’d have …” 

Mabel continued speaking, but Dipper was no longer listening. He remembered the talk he and Stan had earlier, when Stan told him he was better equipped for all this than was his twin. Dipper had thought he was emotionally tougher than Mabel. He thought he could handle the pressure, and be strong enough for both of them.

But he wasn’t! He was certain of that now. Mabel may have worn her heart on her sleeve, but no matter how well he tried to control them, Dipper’s emotions were just as desperate as hers. And when the moment would come for his feelings to explode, as he now knew they would, he’d be in just as bad a place as Mabel.

In that moment, Dipper resolved that he would  _ not _ break up with Mabel. He couldn’t. It was simply an impossibility!

The mention of their birthday in Portland also forced him to recall something very important he’d learned that day at the end of the summer. Over dinner at the fancy restaurant, Mabel had helped him figure out that he would know he was in love when he would do anything for that person. Later that evening, when Mabel was in distress, it was easy for him to tell himself that he’d do anything for her. Making that connection had been the moment when he allowed himself to feel what he’d been suppressing for months, perhaps years: he was in love with his sister.

But he had said he’d do anything for her.  _ Anything! _

Was that true? Had he done every single thing possible within his power for her, and for their love together to survive?

_ No, _ he thought to himself.  _ Not yet, I haven’t! And I can’t do what I need to do alone. I’ve always been too proud ... or too scared ... to ask for help. _

His eyes were drawn to his bed, knowing the thick book he’d been reading earlier in the week was waiting for him. He closed his eyes and centered himself. When his eyes opened again, he was staring directly through the window, and he knew he was ready to commit.

Dipper realized Mabel had been silent for several moments, and he finally returned his attention to her. “So …” she moaned, “... I  _ really _ hate thinking this … but maybe we-” 

“Please!” Dipper interrupted. “Just … please just … wait for one more day! I need a little more time! Please don’t-” Dipper’s throat closed, and he gasped, “... please don’t give up on anything. Not yet!”

Mabel forced a stoic expression on her face, and she silently complied with Dipper’s plea.

Dipper put his books and notepad on his bed, and reached under the mattress for the black hard-cover volume that sat hidden beneath. As he pulled it out, he obscured the front of the book so that Mabel could not see the large white cross and the “Holy Bible” title inscribed on the cover.

Piling his books and clothing in his arms, Dipper pulled them tightly to his chest. He faced Mabel, his cheeks flushed. “Well … g’night Mabel. I’ll see you … at breakfast, okay?” as he backed up to the door and opened it.

“Okay,” Mabel replied weakly. “... Night, Dipper.”

“Night,” Dipper whispered back, stepping through and closing the door behind him. 

He leaned against the doorframe, took a deep breath, and held it.  _ This is it, Dipper _ , he told himself.  _ This is the moment you take the leap of faith. It’s now or never! _

His let his breath go in a loud whoosh, and then he trotted down the stairs. Before Stan could question him, he quickly hustled into Ford’s room, closed the door behind him, and turned the lock.

* * *


	12. Chapter 12

* * *

Sleep hadn’t come easy that night for Mabel. Even with all the trouble she’d had with Dipper that day, it still seemed wrong to have to sleep in the attic alone. She missed his light snoring, and the comforting feeling of knowing he was there with her.

But the time alone had not been completely wasted. It gave Mabel an opportunity to see just how insane things had really gotten.  _ I can’t believe that was really me _ , she thought, remembering the out-of-control girl that was determined to harm herself in whatever way she could, then knocked her brother unconscious.  _ I wish I could make Dipper understand that his idea of being safe is the same as breaking up! But still, he’s right! We can’t keep going this way. Something has got to change.  _

_ What if I really do have to let go? _ she thought. _ Could I ever think that I could be able to move on without him? What if … what if breaking up really is the best thing for us?  _ The questions and anxiety flowed through her, bringing her to anguished tears several times. She tossed and turned for hours before finally the sadness and frustration could keep her awake no longer, and she nodded off between two and three o’clock. Having been up over twenty hours at that point, she’d fallen soundly to sleep.

It was after ten when she awoke. After moaning and stretching, she sat up and allowed her feet to drop heavily over the side of the mattress.  _ Must’ve been crying when I fell asleep _ , she sullenly mused to herself as she rubbed the crusties out of her eyes. When she was finally satisfied that she had picked out all the gross foreign invaders, she raised her eyelids.

Just a few feet away, Dipper sat on the edge of his own bed, silently staring at Mabel. 

Startled, Mabel screamed, triggering a short, loud scream from Dipper as well. Dipper put a hand to his forehead while Mabel pressed her palms to her chest while they both panted from the inadvertent twin jump-scares.

“Sweet Sally, Dipper!” Mabel scolded irritably between gasps. “What are you doing, sitting there all quiet and creepy? … How long have you been there?”

Dipper fought to calm himself as well. “For a while … I’m sorry, didn’t mean to scare you …”

Mabel took a good look at Dipper. He looked haggard, with even darker circles than normal under his eyes. He hair was a mess, and he was definitely wearing the same clothes as the day before.

“You don’t look like you’ve slept,” she said skeptically. “Did you even go to bed?”

Dipper shrugged. “No,” he admitted. “I had … a lot to work out.”

“Yeah?” Mabel asked without much enthusiasm. “What about?”

“Us,” replied Dipper softly.

Mabel regarded him tiredly. “Dipper, I really don’t wanna deal with this, okay? Not now, not when we just keep saying the same things over and over again.”

“But I-” began Dipper.

“Just go to bed!” Mabel interrupted. “I might feel up to talking later, so you may as well get some sleep now.”

Dipper wanted to protest further, but Mabel shut him down and stalked away to the stairs, headed down towards the bathroom. She was tired, grumpy, in no mood to listen, and she wanted time to think. Her thoughts the previous night had been about the possibility of giving up on being able to stay together with Dipper romantically, and she wanted to be in a better frame of mind before being forced to face him once again.

* * *

Morning gave way to midday, then afternoon. What had been a brilliantly clear and cold sunny day became overcast, dampening the atmosphere of the Mystery Shack further. Just one week removed from the winter solstice, daylight had disappeared well before five o’clock. Stan was tossing together a thick turkey stew for dinner, made from the remaining leftovers of their Christmas meal. It seemed like another day was already drawing to a close.

And yet, Dipper did not lie down to rest. As the day progressed, he stayed out of Mabel’s way, but was conspicuously present at all times. 

Mabel sprawled in Stan’s chair in front of the television, staring disinterestedly at the third rerun that day of a documentary on the community access television station. Interest in watching the biography of the life and times of Gravity Fall’s deceased mayor Eustace Befuttlefumpter had waned hours ago. Her eyes flicked over to the sofa where her brother sat with a science fiction magazine. He was ostensibly engrossed in his reading, but Mabel was aware he hadn’t turned the page once since he’d sat down over a half hour before. 

She sighed in resignation. “OK, fine, Dipper,” she conceded reluctantly, pushing herself to her feet and heading for the attic. “I’ll listen to whatever you gotta say.” She heard him following as she ascended the stairs. Dipper had latched the door closed behind them before she finished sitting down on her bed.

“Mabel,” Dipper began without preamble, “you were right! I was wrong for cutting off everything between us. There  _ is _ a place for us! Not just here and now, but back at home, too! We belong together, and I think we  _ should _ be together!” 

Dipper’s short speech sounded well practiced. Mabel suspected that he’d rehearsed it many times in his head. Her face was expressionless. 

“Um …” Dipper continued, “... what I mean is … I see everything that you were talking about. About your needs, and stuff. And … and  _ I _ need them too! I know that now.” 

Mabel continued her inscrutable examination of Dipper.

Sweat burst on Dipper’s forehead. “What I’m  _ trying  _ to say is … is that after seeing things from your perspective … I  _ want _ us to be .. you know …  _ lovers! _ And everything that goes with it! I think the risks-” He cleared his throat. “I think we can risk it. I think that ... as long as we’re careful, we can … we can do this. We can  _ do _ this, Mabel!” He searched Mabel’s face for agreement, or even acknowledgement. 

After a long silence, Mabel finally responded. “Dipper … I don’t think you believe that,” she said softly. 

Dipper drew a breath to reply, but didn’t get a chance to disagree. “I let you talk, Dipper!” she interjected. “Now please, let me!” She could tell it was difficult for him, but he remained wordless.

“I get it. Because of what happened yesterday, and last week,” Mabel said. “I know that … I’m … pretty messed up. I shouldn’t have threatened to …” she couldn’t look Dipper in the eye, “ _ kill _ myself.” She wiped her face quickly. “None of that is your fault. It’s mine! I shouldn’t have done that. And I  _ get _ it! I scared you. It was scary for  _ me _ , too!”

Looking away, Mabel continued. “But … I think you said all that just now because you’re just tryin’ to make me feel better. That’s not a reason to completely go back on everything you think.”

“Mabel-” 

“It doesn’t make  _ sense _ , Dipper!” Mabel plowed on. “I might go nuts and say or do something new and weird and different. But  _ you  _ wouldn’t! After how you were talking yesterday,  _ none  _ of what you just said now sounded like  _ anything  _ you would think. Not unless … you’re just saying what you  _ think  _ I want you to say!”

“That’s not it!” pleaded Dipper. “Please, Mabel, let me explain-”

“Dipper I’m trying to figure out what you’ve been saying since that bus ride home and about all the stuff Grunkle Stan has been saying!” Mabel cried, the words spilling out. “Maybe we  _ shouldn’t  _ have let things get this far! Maybe we  _ should _ try to move on! Mayb-”

“ _ NO!! _ ” exclaimed Dipper. There was sheer panic on his face, and he leaped forward, grasping Mabel tightly by the arms. “No, that’s  _ not _ what I was saying!! Please, you’ve  _ got  _ to give me a few minutes!” 

Mabel was dumbfounded by the role reversal. She was trying very hard to change the way she saw their relationship, to bring herself to look at everything like the way she thought Dipper had been trying to make it. And now  _ he  _ was the one insisting that they be closer together than they had been! What was going on? 

“Just a few minutes? Okay?” Dipper begged desperately, his grip firm on her arms.

Eyeing her brother warily, Mabel consented. “Okay.”

Dipper loosened his hold and blew out a relieved sigh, then his expression set again. He turned and paced to the other side of the room while rubbing his hands together, then spun on his heel and came back. After repeating his steps a second time, he stopped beside his bed and sat, head bowed in an internalized debate.

Finally he looked up at Mabel. “I know that this is going to sound pretty strange, given everything I’ve said before,” he said. “But after I said goodnight last night, after what happened to me … it’s different!  _ I’m _ different!”

Mabel tried to hide her natural impatience, but it was difficult. “What happened?  _ What’s  _ different?” she prodded.

“Everything!” Dipper replied immediately. “I’ve been wanting to tell you all day! That I’m not afraid anymore! I don’t  _ have _ to be afraid anymore! Because I don’t have to make any promises  _ alone _ anymore! I … I asked for help.”

Confusion was obvious in Mabel’s knitted eyebrows. “You stayed up and talked to Grunkle Stan all night?”

Dipper shook his head. “No, not Stan …” He ran a hand through his hair. “Mabel, I know neither of us have been nearly as religious as Mom and Dad, but over the last while … I've really started to see what it's all about. And what the Bible has to say. And … and last night …” he swallowed, and looked down slightly, “... I gave myself to Jesus. I asked for  _ His _ help.”

Mabel’s mouth fell open slightly, her eyes incredulous. Dipper had been right: this  _ did _ sound very strange to her! True, the twins had been attending church with their evangelical parents all their lives. But while Mabel had not completely decided what she did or did not accept from Sunday teachings, Dipper had  _ never  _ indicated any leanings at all towards a strong Christian belief. She never thought it seemed to fit with his logical mind and questioning personality. But now here he was, showing a side of himself she had never seen before.

“... Wow,” Mabel said softly. “I … I had no idea, Dipper.”

He shrugged, still not making eye contact. “I haven’t wanted to make a big deal of it. I’ve kinda been, you know … working it out on my own.” He leaned his head over towards the head of his bed. “You know that black book I pulled out from under the bed last night?” Dipper asked. At Mabel’s nod, he continued, “It’s my copy of the Bible that I’ve kept here at the Shack. I pull it out every so often. I’ve hidden it here since last summer. Since before … you know … the whole ‘Weirdmageddon’ thing happened.”

“That long?” Mabel gasped, astonished that Dipper had kept this a secret from her for well over a year.

Dipper nodded. “Yeah. Then after going to church with Mom and Dad last Sunday, it kind of got driven home.” His eyes met hers. “All this crazy stuff we’re dealing with! Us being together, my concussion and other injuries, the pills … I should never have thought that I could ever control all this myself. I was insane to think it was possible! I’ve been fighting my whole life to have  _ control  _ over my life. So last night … I let go. I prayed, and … I asked Him to  _ take  _ control. I prayed to God that He do to me what He wants ... and that I would obey.”

Mabel was as rigid as stone, amazed by what her brother was telling her, though still not comprehending that what she was hearing was true.

“And the most incredible thing happened!” Dipper continued. “I actually  _ felt  _ the weight of everything fall from my shoulders! All the stress, the uncertainty … it was just  _ gone! _ And this … peaceful kind of feeling came over me.” An unconscious smile crossed his face. “It was comforting … kind of like a warm blanket, only  _ way _ nicer, and-” He stopped short, then looked timidly at Mabel. “... you won’t laugh at this part?”

Feeling she was almost in a trance, Mabel merely shook her head.

Dipper’s gaze was unfocused as he recalled the experience. “I  _ heard _ His voice, Mabel! I swear I could hear Him talking to me … telling me … that everything’s going to alright!” He refocused on Mabel, his face optimistic and hopeful.

Mabel couldn’t quite bring herself to believe what she thought he was saying. “Dipper,  _ what _ do you think is going to be alright?”

“ _ Us! _ ” Dipper exclaimed. “More than just us, actually! I felt … I felt this  _ love _ coming from Him, I felt Him ... letting me know it was okay for me to just  _ accept _ it, to  _ go with it! _ ” He waved his hands excitedly. “The Bible says that we’re to love Him, to love ourselves, and love others. I  _ heard _ Him, Mabel! He said He wants me allow myself to experience that love fully! In every way! That includes  _ you and me! _ ”

It may have been for reasons that Mabel could not have predicted, but Dipper was offering exactly what she dearly wanted: an opportunity for the two of them to continue, loving one another in a genuine romantic relationship. But she'd also allowed herself to think this had happened the previous morning, and that had ended up being a disaster. How could she be assured that it would be different this time? 

_ I want so much for this to be real, _ she thought.  _ But it would just be too much to be wrong again! I couldn’t stand it if I was wrong about this again so soon! This story he's saying … it's unbelievable! I've never heard Dipper say anything like this about religious stuff. I need to keep my “skepticles” on tight! _

“Dip, this is … really  _ weird! _ ” she said. “I’m sure you think you heard something, but couldn’t this be … you know ... ‘cause you just got knocked out yesterday? Maybe you’re just hearing stuff … stuff that’s only in your head?”

“No way! I’ve had a head injury before, Mabel. I know what it’s like,” argued Dipper. “If what I heard was a hallucination, I’d have had other symptoms. No, I really heard Him!”

Mabel’s emotional defenses slipped a bit further. She continued to fight against it. “OK, what if it was someone else talking to you? Or some- _ thing _ else? We’ve seen a bunch of cray-cray stuff happen around here, you know? Maybe you’ve got some invisible wizard or something whispering in your ear?”

“C’mon, Mabel! You’ve seen it yourself that all the weird things about Gravity Falls disappeared after summer last year,” Dipper said. “We were here almost three months again this past summer, and  _ nothing _ happened that was unusual. Great Uncle Ford was right: Weirdmageddon was the end of the weirdness to this area!

Mabel put her face in in her hands.  _ He’s right! This town was totally normal all this summer! Why would there be any change now?  _ Her palms slapped down onto her thighs as she drew at one last straw. “I don’t know the whole Bible. I mean, I don’t even remember all the books in the New Testament, let alone the Old,” she said, forcing herself to remain collected. “But I’m  _ pretty _ sure that there must be some verse in there somewhere that says siblings shouldn’t be gettin’ to know each other in the …  _ biblical _ sense! You know?” Her hands gripped together tightly in her lap. “Isn’t the Bible supposed to be God’s word, or something? How do you figure that works with what your voice told you?”

Dipper scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah … I realize that probably doesn’t fit ... And I guess I don’t have all the answers. But ... “ He leaned forward, hands balled into fists, struggling to verbalize his thoughts. “... Mabel, I swear that after what I felt,  _ it doesn’t matter! _ I  _ know _ what I experienced, and I  _ know _ it’s true! It’s like …” Dipper’s eyes squeezed shut tightly for a long moment. When they reopened, he refocused on his sister. “It’s like I  _ know  _ that there’s someone above us, watching over us all the time. That He’s there keeping our love safe! I’m absolutely  _ certain _ of it!”

_ Oh God, _ thought Mabel,  _ could this really be happening? Could Dipper really have heard God’s word? Could Jesus’ message of peace and love really mean that my feelings for Dipper could be forgiven? Would He really protect us and allow us to be together? It seems so wrong to think about, but so RIGHT to feel it!  _

“I just ... Dipper ...“ she whimpered, looking away.

Dipper slid forward off the edge of his bed and knelt on the floor in front of Mabel, peering up at her. “Look, even if I’m wrong, even if I didn’t hear  _ anything _ … you don’t even have to believe it! What matters is  _ I’ve _ been the reason we’ve been apart, and I promise … I’m  _ not  _ going to be getting in our way any longer!” 

He gently took her hands in his. Mabel’s resistance was close to gone. She could not avoid his intense gaze, and her vision blurred from new tears building up in her eyes.

“We were  _ meant  _ to be together, Mabel,” Dipper said, his voice cracking. “You’ve been trying to tell me for months, and I’ve been an idiot trying to resist it. I was scared, but I’m not scared anymore! We don’t have to be … ‘cause we’re the Mystery Twins, dammit!” He half chuckled, half sobbed. “As long as we work together, and we take care of each other,  _ nothing _ can ever keep us apart! You believe that, right?”

Nothing could stem the torrent of tears streaming down Mabel’s face. She swept away all of her remaining doubt, nodding vigorously and bursting into a loud wail of happiness.

“I … love you … you big … corny … dork!” she stammered between cries.

Dipper smiled with giddy happiness. “I love you too, Mabel,” he murmured back. He leaned up and gently put his hand on the back of her head.

Mabel lunged and straightened up, grabbing hold of Dipper and pushing them back towards his bed. They landed on their sides still locked in a tight embrace, their mouths firmly against one another. 

* * *

Stan shook his head ruefully.

He had just climbed the stairs, ready to let the kids know that supper was ready. He expected that a meal might be a welcome interruption for his niece and nephew from more arguments and hurt feelings. Sure enough, he had heard the sound of Mabel crying in the main attic room beyond the closed door. 

His knuckles had been poised, about to knock, when he also heard an unexpected sound: two tearful, quiet proclamations of love. Followed immediately by the protest of mattress springs, and gasps and moans of passion from two young teenagers.

_ Guess they’ve made their choice, _ he thought, withdrawing his raised fist. It wasn’t the call he would have made for them. He knew that they’d chosen a path that, while perhaps rewarding now, was certain to be very difficult in times to come. He didn’t regret encouraging them to forego the danger of such a taboo attraction, to let it go and move on as simply brother and sister again. He was certain his advice was the better choice for them.

And yet, a small and sappy part of him was secretly happy for them, hoping against hope that they shared a love together that just might be enough to overcome any obstacle thrown their way. 

_ Might as well leave them be _ , he thought as he quietly descended back down to the lower level.  _ I’m betting they won’t be done for awhile. _

Stan served himself a large bowl of stew and sat down in his comfortable chair in front of the old television. He would be more than satisfied spending the evening eating his supper, while watching his favorite shows on the “Black and White Period Piece Old Lady Boring Movie Channel.” Preferably with the volume turned up louder than usual.

* * *

“I’m sorry …” Dipper gasped, a shamed, wide-eyed expression on his quivering face. “...  _ I’m sorry _ …”

Mabel caressed his cheek. “It’s okay,” she whispered, eyes twinkling with suppressed mirth. 

Dipper’s eyes slammed shut. He made a strangled noise of tension, his forehead pressed against his sister’s. Laying on her side facing him, Mabel slid her hand from his face to behind his head. Her legs entwined with his, she tightened her hold with her entire body and pulled him firmly to herself as he groaned urgently, followed by deep panting. Her other hand was between them, lightly gripping Dipper’s twitching penis. Warm semen was leaping from the tip, pooling on their stomachs and chests between their naked bodies. His suppressed moans faded as the last drops puddled into their belly buttons.

After several long moments of trying to regain his breath and dignity, Dipper gingerly reached with his free hand for his discarded t-shirt hanging over the edge of the mattress behind Mabel’s head. His face twisted in embarrassment, he began the awkward task of pushing a corner of the cotton garment down between them and started mopping up. Wearing a broad, fond grin, Mabel decided to allow Dipper to handle cleanup duty, since she had one hand busy running fingers through his hair, and the other occupied with his gradually wilting erection.

Dipper sourly regarded Mabel’s satisfied smile. “It’s not funny,” he mumbled as he folded the sticky mess over inside the shirt and started wiping their skin again with a cleaner portion of fabric.

“I’m not laughing,” Mabel replied, her smile softening with sincerity. “I’m just really happy to see that big ol’ Big-O face of yours, again!” 

Dipper’s gentle ministrations continued as she lightly pecked his nose with her lips, generating a bashful look from her brother. “Yeah, well I guess it’s safer out here than … you know ...” His eyes rolled downwards, “... in  _ there! _ ”

Mabel's demeanor became serious for an instant as she quickly thought of the current date, then she relaxed again. “It’s okay, don’t worry,” she declared dismissively.

Concern flashed through Dipper. “But … but you could-”

“Dipper … I’m due for my little ‘crimson tide’ to start heading out a few days from now.” She grinned at her bro’s mildly horrified face as he processed the menstrual metaphor. “I’m safe! I'm pretty sure we don't have to worry about it.”

Trusting his sister, Dipper nodded. He tossed the shirt on the floor, flopped his head back down onto the pillow and exhaled loudly. He looked downcast, his eyes showing both his fatigue and his disappointment in himself.

Mabel traced a finger through his hair. “Dip, it’s really okay,” she whispered with affection. “Hair-trigger or not, I love that  _ I’m _ the one who can do that to you!”

Dipper shrugged. “I just wish that, you know … you couldn’t do that to me quite so  _ quickly _ …”

“Well, you  _ did _ last a lot longer than the last time we did this,” Mabel said quietly with pride, nuzzling her nose to Dipper’s.

“Maybe a little,” he agreed shyly.

Mabel gave a quick tug on Dipper’s softened member. “Not so little a minute ago,” she whispered saucily. Dipper’s grin finally appeared as their lips met.

The kiss began as gentle and playful, with soft pecks and blissful smiles. But slowly, the intensity of the moment increased as they continued to experience the joy of finally being together again, of no longer feeling any barrier between them. Soon the noise of the winter breeze’s light rattling of the window was drowned out by the sounds of skin caressing against skin, smacks of tongues and lips, quiet gasps, and stifled moans.

Still holding tight to one another, the kids allowed their mouths to part unhurriedly, and their gazes met again. Wordlessly they stared into one another’s eyes, a silence that was both perfectly comfortable and taut with intense emotion. 

Mabel huffed with giddy frustration. “I don’t … I don’t know  _ how  _ to tell you how you make me feel!” she breathed, a teary look of desperate happiness on her face. “I just have these … dumb  _ words _ , and there’s so much  _ more _ I want to tell you about inside me, and … and …” She produced a muffled exclamation of ironic annoyance as she started lightly tapping her forehead onto his.

“It’s okay, Mabel. I know,” murmured a smiling Dipper, brushing a small drop from Mabel’s cheek. The smile grew as he gently pushed her over onto her back and snuggled up to her side, an arm holding her tight under her shoulders, and guiding his knee over her thigh. “I don’t have the right words either,” he continued, still lovingly watching his twin's gaze back at him. His free hand slid down from her face, caressing lightly over her breast and stomach. Mabel’s mouth opened and she gasped with increasing arousal as his hand continued towards its destination between her legs. “Let me  _ show _ you exactly how  _ I _ feel,” Dipper whispered.

Mabel whined and gently intercepted the hand, grasping Dipper’s wrist and firmly holding it over her abdomen. “Dipperrrrrrrr! You … you don’t have to!” she moaned. “You’re exhausted! We were just going to cuddle together until you fell asleep, remember?”

If he was honest, Dipper would have admitted that his body and brain were both very close to being completely spent. But there was no way he was going to allow himself to succumb to fatigue now. His eyes flashed, another adrenaline rush coursing through his body, giving him renewed energy. He quickly leaned over Mabel’s face and pressed his mouth enthusiastically onto her lips. Their tongues danced in a rhythm Mabel was unable to resist, drawing a louder moan from her. Their lips separated with a loud smack. “I’m not tired!” he promised, kissing her again. “And you deserve to feel good!” 

The fingers of his trapped hand began a tantalizing tickle on Mabel’s skin below her navel, forcing her to squirm and giggle. “ _ Quit it! _ ” she squealed, then laughed louder as Dipper just grinned and sped up the movement of his fingers. She had to force Dipper’s hand away, and brought their arms up to lay on top of her chest. “I love you, you goober!” she cried, lowering her chin to kiss his hand. “And … well yeah, of course I want to feel good, but … isn’t there plenty of time for that later?”

“I don’t want you to wait anymore, Mabel,” pleaded Dipper. “It's been too long. And I … I  _ need _ you! I really want to feel you right now!“ Dipper’s hand was being held to Mabel's chest, so he set his fingers to the task of lightly caressing her breast. “... I need you to know …” Mabel gasped as a finger found her nipple. “... that I …” Dipper hovered his lips over Mabel’s mouth, feeling her shuddering exhale as his finger and thumb gently squeezed. “... love you, too!” Mabel was beyond resisting, and her grip on his wrist involuntarily went limp. 

His hand now free, Dipper smirked and again patiently traced his fingers south as he placed kisses on her face and neck. He felt soft pubic hair on Mabel’s mound and she grimaced at the touch, but he kissed her with a warm smile while experimentally moving his fingertips through her short curls in small, languid circles. Extending his reach further, he ran a featherlight massage over her outer privates. Mabel’s entire body was imperceptibly shaking in aroused excitement.

Dipper coaxed Mabel's legs to spread a bit more and began carefully pressing his middle finger between her labia, giving him access to her inner folds. His fingertip found the entrance to her vagina, and he slowly pushed it into the hot, moist tunnel. Mabel twitched and made a short, loud moan of pleasure. He manipulated his finger in and out of her, sensuously painting her fluids further up into her split with each stroke. Finally he drew his finger over her clitoris with agonizingly slow speed, adoring the look of ecstasy that came over Mabel’s face, her eyelids fluttering closed. Dipper placed his lips sweetly over her eyes before making a trail of kisses down to her neck. He was loving the feeling of Mabel’s uneven breaths and body shivers, caused by the attention he was giving her with his finger and mouth. 

He craned his neck back up to Mabel’s ear. “I love you!” he whispered almost inaudibly. “ _ This _ is how I want you to feel, and how I feel about you!” Then he slid his mouth down, over her collarbone and to the firm breast closest to him. His lips surrounded the nipple, gently squeezing it, followed by his mouth opening and playing his tongue and teeth delicately over the erect nub. At the same time, his hand slid lower, allowing his finger to carefully work its way back inside of her while his thumb gently rubbed Mabel’s sensitive button.

“Oh my gosh!” Mabel gasped as her legs spasmed. She was unable to control her reactions: Dipper’s loving assault was powerfully erotic. Mabel had been suffering months of withdrawal from any arousal, her depression and drugs working together to lower her sexual drive. She had not even felt the desire to masturbate since the middle of September, not even once. Now intense physical sensations ripped through her body, feelings magnified by her restored relationship with her brother. She whimpered aloud, holding on to Dipper’s head as he suckled passionately on her breast and caressed her most intimate parts.

Dipper was elated to feel how Mabel was responding to his ministrations. He couldn’t recall her reactions to his mouth and fingers ever being so fervent before. Without stopping, he glanced up to her face, and didn't think that she had ever been so beautiful! Sliding his body against hers felt amazing, and he rocked in rhythm with Mabel’s gyrations. He could tell that her breasts had definitely grown a bit since he had last seen and touched them, and they felt incredible against his cheek and lips. He lunged across her chest to nurse on her other nipple, pulling his arm free from behind her neck to continue with his free hand to fondle the one he'd abandoned.

A strangled noise escaped Mabel’s throat as she fought the urge to yell out with pleasure. She wasn't sure how much time was passing as she felt as if a coil within her was being compressed tighter and tighter. She needed the coil to let go, and she writhed harder and faster against Dipper’s mouth and hands, desperate for release. She obliquely wondered how her brother was able to do this to her, and how deliriously happy he made her.

Sensing Mabel was on the brink of orgasm, Dipper latched his mouth firmly to her breast and ground his teeth into her nipple with perfect pressure. Just as her torso tensed, he drew his finger out and up to her clitoris, rubbing her up and down as rapidly as he could.

That was more than enough stimulation for Mabel. Her every muscle went rigid, and she felt that her entire body might fly apart. She could have sworn stars began glowing behind her eyes. Then the stars burst and everything seemed to explode. And the fireworks wouldn’t stop, as Dipper continued to lovingly manipulate her over the edge again and again. She was barely aware of the strained noises of pure joy she was making while she drowned in a sea of overwhelming bliss.

“Stop!” Mabel finally managed to gasp, flailing and lightly hitting Dipper’s head and hand. He grinned broadly, tweaked her once more to tease one last ecstatic reaction out of her, then held her close as she helplessly splayed out flat on her back and gulped great lungfuls of air.

Dipper nuzzled his mouth close to her ear. “I  _ love _ it when you do that!” he murmured.

“When  _ I _ … do that?” Mabel panted incredulously. “That was all … you! I didn’t … do anything!” Mabel’s whole body felt numb and electric at the same time. Trying to give a better hug to this wonderful and considerate nerd, she raised her arm and let it flop clumsily, dropping her palm with a soft smack onto Dipper’s smiling cheek. 

Her goofy style of showing affection made Dipper chuckle. Then he made an over-exaggerated show of being knocked unconscious again by the blow, crossing his eyes and letting his tongue hang out of his slackened mouth.

“Dipper ... you butt!” Mabel complained. “That … is  _ not _ funny!” She thrust her bottom lip out, trying to put on a comical display of pouting even as she struggled to regain her breath.

Refocusing, Dipper got a look at Mabel's face and snorted again. “Yeah? Well then go easier on me, okay?” he laughed, and gave her a hard full-body squeeze. After reaching up for a tender kiss on her temple, he backed off only enough to be able to look deeply into her eyes. 

She fixed her gaze back on him. The expression on the cute, dorky face inches in front of her was one of pure and limitless adoration, and something inside her melted even more. She knew Dipper loved and cared about her, and had always known this fact for as long as she could remember. But now, the face of this boy revealed so much more, betraying the truth of how close the twins had become. He’d said so before, but she now  _ knew _ it: Dipper would do anything,  _ anything  _ at all in his power, for her. And  _ only _ her! 

It was impossible at that moment for Mabel to not fall in love with Dipper even more.

Mabel could not let this realization pass. Dipper  _ had _ to know what this meant to her. He had to  _ know _ how she felt about him. Immediately. And completely! Her muscles reacted instantly. She grabbed his head with both hands and thrust her mouth onto his. 

Dipper squeaked in amusement, then made a wide-eyed exclamation of muffled surprise as Mabel quickly twisted and wrapped her arms and legs around him. In seconds she held him tightly and had pulled him on top of her, his pelvis between her legs and his rejuvenated shaft resting directly on top of her loins.

She broke the kiss. “I need you, Dipper! Now!” she gasped impatiently, pushing her hand between them and reaching for his penis while grunting under Dipper’s weight on her chest.

“Okay!” Dipper breathed, instantly invigorated by Mabel’s desire. It took him a second to get his elbows and knees under himself, and no sooner had he done so, he felt Mabel grasp his erection in one hand and a butt cheek in the other. She guided him straight to her entrance. Mabel's insistence was catching, and as he urgently snaked his arms beneath her lower back and neck, Dipper felt the tip of his length penetrating her tight channel. Then Mabel wrapped herself around him, crossing her ankles behind his thighs and her arms around his back.

For a split second time seemed to stop. Dipper supported his weight above Mabel as they panted shakily, their foreheads and noses pressed together. 

Then with a soft cry, he sheathed himself to the hilt in one stroke. And as he wrapped his tongue around hers and squeezed her torso tightly to his own, his hips kept pushing, trying to crush their bodies together even more if at all possible. 

Seconds before, Mabel was desperate for Dipper, needing to feel more of him. Now, she felt  _ all  _ of him! His arms held her, his penis was deep within her, his body and mouth covered her, and his love filled her. She rejoiced in their pure intimacy together. Dipper’s tiny, fast pelvic thrusts were grinding his pubic bone directly onto her defenseless clitoris nonstop. Another loud moan escaped Mabel’s throat, her facial expression distorted, and she quivered helplessly in Dipper’s embrace as a sustained, sweet climax washed over her.

As she slowly came down, Dipper loosened his hold on Mabel. He loved seeing the look of supreme contentment on her face. 

Mabel felt Dipper inside her, and knew he was still very hard. Her eyelids fluttered open, and she looked back at him. She wondered if she could ever feel better than this, and she knew she was about to find out.

“Again, Sir Dippin’ Sauce!” she whispered dreamily.

Dipper smiled. “As you wish, Lady Mabelton!” he murmured back. Very deliberately, he drew back his hips, almost pulling his entire penis free. Then Mabel pulled in a long, delighted breath as he pushed back in equally slowly. 

“Agaaaaaaaaain!” Mabel sighed, placing a palm on Dipper’s cheek. He snorted softly and gave her a tender kiss. 

Then together, they made love. 

They were unhurried, and had no fears or worries. Gone for the moment was anyone who could hurt them, or their relationship together. The twins revelled in the freedom they were finally allowed to experience. There was only each other. It was the most beautiful moment either of them could possibly imagine.

The pace of the twins’ lovemaking increased very slowly, the rhythms of their movements together inexorably synchronized. Despite their emotional distress of the past months, a lifetime of knowing each other almost as much as themselves prepared them for the perfect dance they shared now. Their young bodies heaved and writhed together as one, glorious physical sensations joining with their trust and faith in one another to drive them forward ever faster.

“Oh … Oh Dipper …” Mabel moaned.

There was no one else for Mabel, she knew without a doubt. She loved Dipper with everything that she was! She could imagine no way that the universe could ever allow for the creation of any emotion in her as strong as what she felt for him. 

“I love you, Dipper! … I love you … so  _ much! _ ” she panted as she moved in time with Dipper’s thrusts.

“I love you … too, Mabel!” Dipper gasped back, holding himself up over her and looking deliriously happy.

They were perfect together, she knew. It made no difference to her that he was her brother! She only loved him  _ more _ because of everything they had experienced together! They had always been there for each other, even in the womb. And they always would! Forever!

“And we’ll  _ always _ be together …” Mabel cried happily, “... right?” 

Dipper’s expression changed instantaneously. His smile disappeared. His eyes opened wide as saucers. Mabel’s words had seemed to shock him to the core.

“Oh God!” he panted, completely serious. “I want nothing more … Mabel, I ... I love you so much …” His movements resumed with even more ardor, as his instincts ordered his body to demonstrate the intensity of how he felt. 

Mabel could see and feel the desperate power of Dipper’s emotions. Her body responded, clutching and moving with him.

“... I will do everything …” Dipper continued, wetness forming in his eyes. “... I’ll do  _ anything _ …” He continued making love to Mabel even more fervently even as a tear dropped onto Mabel’s cheek

Not wanting to see Dipper in distress, Mabel reached up to lower him to her breast, and to get him to stop and calm down. But he shrugged off the attempt.

“No! Mabel, you deserve so much!” he said tightly. “I can’t bear the thought that … that we’d ever… that  _ I’d _ ever do anything ...” Dipper tried and failed to suppress a sharp sob, and a stream of tears leaked from his eyes. Even so, his embrace tightened and his hips thrust even harder.

Then suddenly Dipper squeezed his eyes closed and he arched his back and neck. “Oh my God please!” he cried out. “Please, you can do this! … You can let Mabel and I be together!” Another wracking sob broke from his chest. “She deserves to be happy! Sh- … she deserves …  _ everything!! _ ” he managed to choke. Even as he took a huge unsteady breath, he still drove his body to keep up his attempts to prove his love for his sister. 

Mabel’s heart lunged at Dipper’s plea. She could hardly believe how much emotion Dipper was capable of, that his love for her could be so strong! She had never seen him beg and plead so hard before. He was exposing his deepest vulnerability and newfound faith, all the while making her feel incredible physical and emotional pleasure. And all for her! A high-pitched, almost pitifully soft wail escaped her throat.

“I don’t deserve her!” Dipper sobbed, his eyes now wide open and staring at the dark sky through the window. “But … please … if you could just … have mercy on me!” His whole body moved in a frenzy now, attempting to fuse his body and soul with Mabel. “ _ Please!! _ ” he begged desperately.

Mabel was overcome by Dipper’s passion and despair. Blithely unaware of her own tears, she lunged up and clutched him tightly with her entire body. Every part of her squeezed him as hard as she could, including his penis deep inside her vagina, even as she knew she would fly apart at any moment.

“ _ PLEASE!! _ ” Dipper practically yelled. Then he let out a loud, anguished cry, his self-control gone as the massive buildup of sexual stress in his groin passed the point of no return. He collapsed into Mabel’s strong full-body embrace as an unimaginably intense orgasm completely overwhelmed him.

Nothing could stop Mabel from climaxing at this point. An almost hysterical scream of sympathy, love, and lust burst from her as she held her wonderful brother, catching his salty tears on her face while feeling him throb deep within her, his tears and semen becoming part of her. Nothing had ever felt so intimate, so powerful before in her entire life!

After eventually releasing her grip, Mabel let Dipper slide sideways beside her, and their muscles finally relaxed. They lay sprawled together in a sweaty, teary pile on Dipper’s bed for several minutes, sobbing and gasping heavily for air. Neither one could do anything but just stare in wonder at each other, near disbelief that they’d just shared such an unforgetable and beautiful experience together.

Mabel finally began feeling the chill of the cool attic air on her damp skin. Without releasing Dipper’s hand, she reached down to the floor for her discarded sweater and used it to wipe up the majority of the wet and sticky coating from both of their bodies. Dipper let her work without speaking, the rise and fall of his chest and his heavily lidded eyes the only parts of him that moved.

Satisfied that they were both acceptably dried off, Mabel sat herself on the mattress beside Dipper and pulled the sheet and heavy blanket up over them.

“It’s okay, Mabel,” Dipper muttered weakly. “I’m not tir-”

“Shush! You are, too!” Mabel interrupted. She quickly fluffed her pillow high on the bed and laid down, pulling Dipper close with his head tucked by her collarbone. “No more arguments, apologies, or hanky panky. You need to sleep!” 

At first his exhausted face showed his defiance of her orders. But then he smiled reluctantly and snuggled into her body, hugging her beneath the covers. She felt the last of the tension in his muscles disappear.

“I love you, Mabel,” Dipper whispered into her chest.

“I know,” Mabel replied quietly, kissing the top of her brother’s head. “And I love you, too!” Dipper was already half gone, and fell sound asleep seconds later. 

Mabel held him as he slept, secure in the knowledge that she was exactly where she wanted to be. Sure, she felt gross and sticky, and could use a shower to get cleaned up. And yeah, she was hungry and pretty darn thirsty, too. But all that paled compared to resting there with Dipper. All the heartache and depression was washed away, with only love in their place. 

At last, after all this time, the Mystery Twins were complete again! 

* * *

 


	13. Chapter 13

* * *

Dipper emerged groggily from a sound sleep into a thick and disagreeable wakefulness. He was lying on his back with his mouth hanging open. Upon closing it, he discovered with distaste that his tongue was dry and tasted awful. He really needed to take a leak. He craved food and water, and his joints and muscles were sore. Oh yeah, and there were the usual drug cravings.

_ Uhhhggh _ , he thought to himself, eyes still closed.  _ Everything feels like crap! Where am I? It’s so cold! Why am I in bed without my shirt and shorts? Wh- _

Then Dipper stopped and smiled, despite the gross feelings. As the fog cleared from his brain enough for him to remember the previous evening, he felt the presence of the warm body to his right, lying in the small bed with him. He carefully turned his head to the side and cracked open his eyes. The attic was illuminated by the bedside lamp, and he peeked at the face of his beautiful sister sleeping next to him, just inches from his nose.

Mabel’s face was relaxed, and she looked wonderfully content. Dipper was once again staggered by the feelings she generated in him. A shiver ran down his back as her exhaled breaths tickled his cheek.  _ It’s real again! I can’t believe it’s all real again!  _ he marvelled silently.  _ I get another chance, to be what I should have been to Mabel before _ . In the low light of the attic, he spent several minutes hearing his heart pound in his ears, just from watching his twin sleeping peacefully. Then he closed his eyes again for a moment.  _ Thank you! _ he prayed with complete sincerity.  _ I don’t know if I deserve this, but thank you! _

But he could ignore the complaints of his body no longer. He needed to get up and pee, if nothing else. Carefully rolling over back away from Mabel, he flipped the blanket off and sat up on the side of his bed.  _ Man, it’s a lot chillier to be naked in this room at the end of December than it was at the end of August _ , he mused as he scratched his scalp, and looked down at the disarrayed contents of his suitcase for something to put on.

Something on Mabel’s bed caught Dipper’s eye. His bathrobe was already laid out for him. As he rose and crossed the three steps to retrieve it, he glanced over to the table between the beds to check the time. Besides seeing it was after four in the morning, he also noticed a wrapped peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a glass of water, and a Methadone tablet. He shook his head and grinned as he pulled on the robe over his shivering body, then picked up a sheet of paper that sat directly under the lamp. It was a note in Mabel’s handwriting:

> Hey, sleepy Bro!
> 
> You know, you’re an adorable dork every day, but you are SUPER ADORKABLES right now! All sweet and snuggly! You might be my stud muffin by day, but you’re my new fave teddy bear when you get all tired and droopy heeeeeee!
> 
> I thought you might wake up needing some of this stuff later, so here you go. I made sure Grunkle Stan was already in bed when I went downstairs, cause it's gonna take both of us to get through that mega-awkward talk! 
> 
> Anywhooooo, I’m tired and cold. And since I see a nice little spot beside the bestest and warmest Broseph in the world, I think I just might squeeze back in there! 
> 
> XXOOXOXO    
>  I love you, Dipper!   
>  XXXXXXOOOOOO   
>  (I’m kissing and hugging you on paper cause I don’t want to wake you)   
>  XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO   
>  (But I TOTALLY could wake you up anyways, cause you give big hugs and you’re are a GREAT KISSER eyebrow waggle ;-)   
>  XXXXXXXX OOXXXXXOO XXXOOOXXXXXX   
>  (OK I’m done now)   
>  X   
>  (Seriously that was the last one! G’night!!!!)

Dipper made a soft snort, and fondly gazed at Mabel again. He washed down the medication quickly with a long drink of water, and quietly attacked the sandwich. He knew he was awfully lucky to have such a thoughtful sister. After a stealthy trip to the bathroom downstairs to empty his bladder and brush his teeth, he felt much better and was ready to go back to sleep. 

Turning off the lamp and removing his robe, he climbed back into his bed as gingerly as he could. But the movement and noise was enough to rouse Mabel. She made a cute moan as Dipper pulled the blankets back up, and he could barely tell that her eyes blinked open for a moment as he tried to get comfortable.

“Sorry,” Dipper whispered. “Didn’t want to wake you.”

Mabel’s eyes drifted closed again. “S’okay,” she muttered sleepily. “Did’ja get my note?”

Dipper leaned over and gently kissed her forehead. “Yeah. Thank you, that was really nice,” he whispered back. He pecked her forehead softly again and murmured “I love you,” and then started to settle his head on his pillow.

A pouty “Mmm!” noise came from the other pillow. Dipper grinned at Mabel’s face, still looking asleep save for the protruding puckered-up lips, and shifted back to the middle of the bed to kiss her lips sweetly. Mabel hummed appreciatively and reached out her arms. “I wanna hug my squeezy bear!” she mumbled.

It felt so natural, so  _ right _ , for Dipper to just slide up against Mabel’s nude body and return the embrace. Their legs and arms instinctively found their way around one another, and their mouths melted together again. 

And then they weren't quite so sleepy anymore.

For the next half hour, no words were spoken. Nor were they needed. The twins communicated everything they needed through soft gasps, quiet moans, and intimate touches. As they tenderly made love, they reveled in how perfectly they completed one another. They were two young siblings who, given their brief life and extraordinary experiences together, couldn’t have felt any other way.

This time when Dipper fell back asleep in Mabel's arms, she did the same moments later. 

* * *

Stan was slouched at the kitchen table in his customary undershirt and loose jockeys, scratching himself distractedly while reading the latest edition of the Gravity Falls Gossiper. It was late on Saturday morning, and although he slept right through the night, he’d had to drag himself out of bed again.  _ I’m always so damned tired!  _ he thought to himself.  _ This “getting old” business stinks. Seventy years old next summer! The old bones and joints ache more every day, it seems.  _ He reached for his mug of coffee and took a long sip.

His brief foray into self-pity was interrupted by the creaking sound of the bottom step on the wooden staircase in the next room. He allowed the top of the newspaper to droop as Dipper and Mabel tentatively appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, dressed but looking disheveled. They were holding hands and wearing very apprehensive expressions.

_ Then again, dealing with getting old is nothing compared to what these two have been dealing with,  _ he mused.  _ And what they’ve chosen to still go through. _ He sighed loudly. “Alright, you two,” he said quietly, putting the paper aside. “Come over here and sit down.”

The twins hesitantly stepped over the threshold and approached the table, Dipper dragging a chair and placing it beside the one on the opposite side from Stan. Then they wordlessly sat together, still gripping each other’s hand tightly.

Stan regarded them soberly. “So .. no real need for me to tell you that I know what went on with you kids last night,“ he muttered, avoiding making eye contact. “It was pretty obvious all the way down here.” Dipper and Mabel both flushed, their faces blooming a bright red. 

He leaned forward, cringing but knowing this discussion was required. “More important is what happens now. Are you planning to stay together when you go back home again?” The silence continued, but both twins glanced at each other, then back to their uncle and nodded, readjusting their grip on each other’s hands. Stan grunted softly, shaking his head. “Jeez, kids. Do you know what you’re getting yourselves into?”

“Umm … well-” Dipper said, then he swallowed nervously. “...yeah, we’ll … we know that we can’t tell anyone about us, or anything … and …” His words trailed off.

The silence hung over the room for several moments. Finally Stan said, “Of course you won’t  _ tell _ anyone. But if you think you’re going to keep going …” he waved his hand back and forth at them, “...  _ together _ … and think no one will notice, you’re kidding yourselves!”

Dipper tried to summon bravado. “We can do it, we’re just … going to have to be careful, that’s all!”

“Really?” Stan remarked, trying very hard to keep the sarcasm out of his tone. “How well did that work when you went home a few months ago?”

Mabel spoke up. “That was different, Grunkle Stan! When we went back the first time, we thought we were  _ done _ . We spent the whole bus ride home trying to get ready for … being  _ normal _ again.” Her shoulders fell. “But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let go! I pushed and pushed, and … it all kind of went  _ thbbpthbpt! _ ” she grumbled with a lackluster raspberry.

“It wasn’t just you,” Dipper said reassuringly. “I shouldn’t have handled everything the way I did, either.” He paused to squeeze Mabel’s hand, and she peered at him. “And you were  _ right! _ I thought we could go back to the way we were, or at least fool ourselves into thinking that way. Now I know we can’t.” Mabel returned Dipper’s loving look, then he turned back to Stan. “We weren’t on the same page, from the moment we returned home.”

“Yeah!” Mabel exclaimed. “When I just decided the night we got home that I wasn’t going to let go, that I was going to try to keep us together … I didn’t even  _ tell _ Dipper! He just had to deal with me!”

“And I never really asked Mabel about how I made her feel when I shut everything down after that,” Dipper added. “She thought I  _ meant  _ to break up with her, that I  _ wanted  _ to stop! I made her feel like I wanted to stop loving her!” 

Mabel nodded. “We weren’t really good at the whole ‘communication’ thing, were we?”

“No, not really,” Dipper agreed. “But now … we’re  _ talking  _ again!”

Stan considered this. “So you’re talking. Great. How is this going to keep every single idiot in California from knowing you’re more than just siblings, just by looking at the way you are together?”

“ _ You _ see it because you already know!” cried Mabel. “Come on, Grunkle Stan, you know that the Dipster and I have been been real weird close since the day you met us! You said yourself last year that it was unnatural for us to get along as well as we do. Everyone already  _ knows  _ that about us!” She held up their joined hands. “Seriously, we held hands  _ all the time _ , even before we fell in love! What brother and sister  _ does _ that?” Dipper snorted as Mabel continued. “Trust me, everyone in Piedmont has probably been trying to figure out what’s happening between us  _ because we haven’t  _ been doin’ the Twin Thing for the past few months! But now all we have to do is, you know ...  _ tone it down _ a little, and I bet no one who knows us will think anything other than we’re back to the way we used to be!”

Dipper added his free hand, gripping Mabel’s hand with both of his own. “And we know we have to meet in the middle on how  _ we  _ react to this. I get really scared by even the smallest chance that we’ll get caught. I have to accept … that I have to  _ risk  _ a little sometimes to get what we need.”

“And  _ I _ need to not be running my engines on full ‘impulse’ all the time!” Mabel piped in, adding her extra hand to their shared grip. “I can’t be rolling the dice like I’ve been doing.” 

“But what if you both can’t do that?” Stan argued. “The way you behave isn’t easy to change, and you could fall back to your old ways. Or what if, for whatever reason, your feelings change? You’re young! Kids have always fallen in love, and then they fall  _ out _ of love, and it could happen to you, too.” The twins glared at their uncle with decidedly unpleasant expressions. “I’m  _ not _ saying it will happen, only that it  _ might! _ Normally, teenagers just move on from a breakup, but you’ll have to still live together and be a family. Are you prepared for that?”

Mabel’s defiant scowl instantly transformed into determination, and she turned in her chair to face her brother. “Dipper, I promise you now,  _ nothing _ will make me ever break our bond. Even-” She stopped and winced as she closed her eyes and forced herself to imagine Dipper in a relationship with another girl. “... Even if you’re with someone else … I will be the  _ best  _ sister ever!” she said with tight conviction. 

Dipper gripped her hands tighter. “Mabel, we’re twins, and we  _ always  _ will be!” he said easily and sincerely. “I don’t care if the way you feel about me could ever change, it won’t ever matter. I will love you in every way you need me to, no matter what!” He smiled at his sister supportively, and they leaned closer together.

Stan tried to appraise the situation without feelings. His fondness for his niece and nephew would only get in the way of him being able to examine their situation objectively, he knew. They had to examine every consequence of their decision, and sentiment on his part would only get in the way.

_ But damnit, it’s hard to be dispassionate when they’re sitting there like they’ve got no choice but to do everything possible to be together. And I BELIEVE them! _

He exhaled loudly. “Okay, kids.  _ This  _ is the tough question.” He waited a beat as they turned to focus on him, then pulled a deep breath back in. “If you do this … despite your best efforts, there’s a real chance someone other than me is going to find out about the way you both feel, and that gets back to your parents.” He looked directly at Mabel, who couldn’t hide signs of a fearful look. Then his gaze fell on Dipper, and he saw an oddly detached expression. “Are you sure you want to chance that? Do I have to spell out how bad that would be for both of you?”

Dipper didn’t hesitate. “That’s  _ not  _ going to happen,” he replied tightly.

Stan blinked. Dipper was the most notorious planner of contingencies he knew. How could he not have thought this part through?  “Uh, yeah, it could!” he retorted. “And if it does, you’d better have an idea of how you’ll handle it.”

“No I don’t,” Dipper countered in a quiet determined grumble. “It’s unnecessary, and it won’t make any difference.” 

Mabel peered at her brother with curious concern. She understood that Dipper believed their relationship together was safe, and that his newfound faith was instrumental to this belief. But Stan didn’t know that! And she thought his reaction to Stan’s question sounded way too defensive. 

“Kid, there’s any number of-”

“ _ I don’t care! _ ” Dipper interrupted loudly, an almost furious energy suddenly erupting from within him. He leapt to his feet, his chair clattering to the floor behind him. “We  _ won’t _ be found out!”

A startled Mabel jumped up to Dipper’s side, grabbing his arm. “Dip, what the heck? Grunkle Stan’s only trying to  _ help _ us!” She turned to her uncle. “I’ll explain! Last night, Dipper told me abou-”

“ _ Mabel! _ ” Dipper barked sharply. Mabel cowered slightly at the rebuke, and Dipper was immediately regretful. “I’m … I’m sorry, Mabel! It’s just that …” he lowered his voice imperceptibly, “... that’s not really important,” silently pleading to Mabel that she not tell Stan of his religious revelation. She didn’t get why, but she nodded back in understanding. 

Dipper reluctantly turned his head to his uncomprehending uncle. “Sorry, I … I really appreciate that you’re keeping our secret, Grunkle Stan, and making us talk this through. And I  _ know  _ I’m ignoring what would happen.” He flinched in frustration. “But I really  _ can’t  _ think about that! I  _ know _ that if anyone else finds out, it’s all over! If anyone finds out, there is absolutely  _ nothing  _ that I could do that would fix it!” His jaw set. “And that’s exactly why it  _ won’t _ happen! It  _ can’t!! _ We might not be allowed to be as free and open about how we feel as we want to. But Mabel and I  _ need _ to be together, and we  _ will! _ ”

Stan regarded the resolute face of his nephew for several heartbeats. He could see that Dipper knew the risks, understood the consequences, and was completely prepared to go forward regardless. Arguing the point further was pointless. He just wished he knew what caused this almost reckless shift in Dipper’s personality, to seemingly act all of a sudden with his heart instead of his head, but he was unwilling to talk about it. A quick glance at Mabel told Stan that she was in agreement with her brother, but that was no surprise. 

He raised his hands. “Alright alright! Just cool down and sit, okay?” he exclaimed, trying to change the subject. Mabel perched herself immediately while Dipper righted his chair and sat back down while taking a calming breath. 

“Let’s say I believe all that,” he declared. “All the wishing in the world won’t stop you from being discovered if you two aren’t careful in another way.” He glanced sternly back and forth between the teens. “What did you use last night for protection?” 

A decidedly guilty and sheepish look immediately formed on the twins’ faces. Stan grunted. “Yeah, I figured that. What have you used before?”

Mabel reddened in embarrassment, and Dipper appeared to be fixated on a note stuck to the refrigerator door. “We … kind of .... never have,” Mabel mumbled under her breath.

Sighing heavily, Stan lowered his forehead into his palm and shook his head slowly. “Sonofabitch …” he muttered. “And here I’ve always thought you two were smart!” He glared at them, genuinely feeling anger and disappointment in them for the first time. “You are both  _ damn  _ lucky Mabel never got pregnant in September. And if you’re  _ really _ lucky, nothing will come from last night either!” 

Mabel meekly tried to argue. “Actually, it’s not that time of the month fo-”

“You can get pregnant  _ any _ time of the month, in the right circumstances! Even  _ I _ know that!” Stan fired back. The twins shrank in their seats. “I might not be able to convince you two that this relationship you have is crazy, but I’m  _ damn well _ going to get through to you on this!” Stan pointed directly at Dipper. “You will  _ keep it in your pants _ unless you’re using birth control!  _ Got it?! _ ”

Dipper gulped. “Yes, Grunkle Stan,” he replied shakily.

Then he pointed at Mabel. “And same for you! You’d better not think you know every little thing about your body.  _ Lots  _ of girls more careful than you have still ended up with babies. I’m thinking you don’t want that?”

“No, Grunkle Stan!” came Mabel’s squeaky, frightened reply.

“Good!” Stan snapped, then examined his niece and nephew’s almost terrified expressions. They’d never looked at him like that before. 

He shoved his chair back and stood quickly, aware that he needed to cool down. He paced the floor back and forth as he spoke again. “Look, here’s the deal! You two knuckleheads have already made things really hard for yourselves with what you’re doing. I just-” He exhaled heavily. “... I just don’t want you to add any  _ more  _ to your plate!”

Then he stopped in front of them and gingerly knelt down to one knee, so that he wasn’t looking down on them. “But regardless of anything, no matter what happens … the Shack is a safe place for you.” Mabel instantly began to tear up, and Dipper bit his lip. Stan even felt something catch in his own chest. “If you ever need help, you can  _ always  _ come here. No questions, no judgement. You got that?”

Mabel hurled herself past Dipper into Stan’s chest, weeping freely as Stan’s right arm held her tight. Dipper slid off of his chair and joined them, easing into Stan’s left side. He buried his head quietly but solidly into the old man’s shoulder. Stan felt the boy’s body shudder from barely contained sobs.

* * *

It was late in the morning, and brunch was a welcome relief after the intense talk. Stan suggested they make a batch of his famous Stancakes, and the kids happily agreed. The twins consumed most of the entire stack by themselves, as they were both very hungry.

Stan announced that a trip into town was in order. There were more groceries to buy than usual due to having two growing kids in the Shack for another week, and he needed to stock up. Also, there were “family planning” products that had to be procured. Stan took pity on Dipper and Mabel as he realized how embarrassing (and potentially dangerous) it would be for either of the teenagers to buy condoms in a small town where they were so well known. Instead, he volunteered to go and get them himself. Sure, he’d get some strange looks at the drugstore instead, but it wouldn’t be the weirdest thing anyone had seen him do since he arrived in town over three decades before. 

After he had finished eating and gotten dressed, and following a quick and stern reminder for the twins to restrain themselves, Stan stepped out into the cold winter air, headed for his beloved Stanmobile.

As soon as the old sedan left the driveway, Mabel declared that Dipper was stinky and needed a shower right away. And in the interests of “saving water”, she insisted that she join him.

They took their time undressing each other again, both of them once again feeling the wonderful rush that accompanies young sexuality. They managed to eventually make their way into the old clawfoot tub, caressing and kissing one another the entire time. The water took several seconds to warm up, triggering a brief outburst of shrieking and silly shouts, but soon after they were playfully and seductively washing one another’s bodies. They took turns rinsing under the showerhead, giggling each time they almost lost their balance trying to maneuver their way past the other in the narrow tub, groping and tickling each other every time. As he turned off the water, Dipper noted with a smirk that the shower had taken longer than the combined time it would have taken them separately. Mabel nonetheless loudly declared the experiment a victory for the environment as she squeezed excess water out of her long hair, then pulled the curtain open.

This was when they discovered that in their haste to enjoy their time alone, they had forgotten to bring down towels or robes from their room upstairs. Rather than put their dirty clothes back on, Mabel grinned naughtily, grabbed Dipper’s hand, and pulled him out of the bathroom naked. With Mabel in the lead, they streaked soaking wet from the bathroom, detouring through every room in the building, and finally up the stairs to the attic, giggling the whole way. The air was cold, but they were still laughing as they located towels and started buffing themselves dry even as their teeth began chattering.

Mabel was mostly dry but shivering when she dove under the covers on her bed. “C’mere!” she shrieked. “I need you to help me get warm!”

Dipper tilted his head and smiled shyly as he kept scrubbing his legs. “Mabellllllll,” he complained. “If I get in there with you, we’re gonna want to … you know!” He blushed, despite the chill. “We can’t … you know …  _ do _ that for now…”

“Oh, tish tosh!” Mabel scolded, gesturing him with her arm vigorously while holding up the blanket with the other. “We just don’t give into it! Get a grip on those hormones and get  _ over  _ here, man! You’ve got serious boyfriendly duties, and you’re falling down on the job!”

The will to resist was immediately gone, and Dipper scrambled beneath the offered sheets. Their skin was still clammy, and they squealed and growled delightedly as they wrestled and squirmed against each other like silly puppies. The bed’s sheets became twisted in the scuffle, but the young combatants didn’t care. Soon all the bed coverings and pillows were strewn randomly on the floor, with two aroused and naked teens still fighting for dominance.

Finally Mabel managed to grab both of Dipper’s wrists, and with a triumphant yell she forced Dipper down on his back with his arms pinned to the mattress on either side of his head, and she clambered on top of him to hold his entire body down. Her face was inches away from his, wet hair cascading around them, as they grinned and panted happily. 

Still gasping for breath and keeping her weight on Dipper’s arms, she leaned down and kissed him passionately. Allowing himself to be immobilized, Dipper strained to lift his neck and push into the kiss. Mabel’s legs were astride Dipper’s hips, and their bodies naturally began rubbing against each other. The delicious friction of Dipper’s skin rubbing against Mabel’s drove her to gyrate harder and faster.

Any temporary shrinkage caused by the cold that Dipper may have been suffering from was now firmly in the past. Dipper moaned loudly into Mabel’s mouth as she used long pelvic thrusts to drag his erect shaft up and down her sex. 

Dipper broke the kiss, his eyes wild with desire. “Mabes!” he gasped. “... We can’t … We promised Stan-”

“We promised Stan … that we can’t do anything … that might make me pregnant,” Mabel panted, continuing to grind herself steadily against her lover. Her movements slowed, and she gazed at him adoringly. “There are  _ other  _ ways to do this,” she whispered, followed by a quick, hard kiss on the mouth. Then she released Dipper’s wrists and began sliding her way down. Peppering his chin, throat, neck, chest, and stomach with short kisses, causing Dipper to giggle and squirm with ticklishness. 

As she passed his belly button and continued to work her way down, he felt her palm grasp his penis and it finally dawned on Dipper’s frazzled brain where Mabel was headed. At once his hands were at the sides of her head, gently but firmly insisting that she stop. 

“Mabel …” he stammered, “... you don’t … you know, have to! I’m ...”

She looked at him with a coquettish smirk. “I know I don’t  _ have _ to,dum-dum!” Her grin spread wider. “It’s myyyyyyyyyy pleasure!” She swirled her tongue tantalizingly around her lips as she gripped harder and pulled on his erection.

Dipper sucked in a breath from the stimulation, but pressed on. “No Mabel, really!” he said, a little louder. “That last time you did … I didn’t mean for it happen like tha-”

“Seriously, Brobro!  _ Ancient  _ history! Fuggetaboutit!” Mabel replied easily with a seductive smile. She resumed her task of jacking Dipper steadily and tilted her chin down, sticking her tongue into his navel and subtly pulling against Dipper’s grip on her head.

But Dipper couldn’t just allow the subject to drop. “Mabel,  _ I’m _ serious!” he cried. “You don’t … I don’t want you to have to do this …” He battled against tears, caused by the bitter memories of the first Wednesday after their return to California in the fall. “I mean last time I … when I  _ forced  _ myself on you an-”

“Oh, no … no no Dipper!” Mabel interjected, all pretense of sexiness gone in the blink of an eye, replaced by loving concern. “No, no you didn’t mean to force  _ anything! _ ” She looked away for a second. “Yeah, it  _ felt _ that way, and it wasn’t fun, but ... I don’t blame you anymore.” She pulled her body up as she spoke so that her chin rested on Dipper’s breast bone. “Honest! I haven't for a long time now. And truth is, I could’ve stopped you, and I know you would’ve stopped, but … I got all frozen up and stuff.” She shrugged, trying to be dismissive. “It  _ happened!  _ But it’s done. And I don’t want it to be a thing anymore.”

Dipper said nothing, obviously still upset and unsure. Crawling further up so that her eyes were looking down directly into his, Mabel placed her free hand on his cheek. “Hey!” she whispered with a sweet smile. “I  _ know _ you’re sorry, so ... please don’t beat yourself up about it!” She gently kissed his lips. “I forgive you.”

A shuddering breath escaped Dipper’s lungs, and he wiped his face quickly. “I’m sorry!” he said quickly after an unsteady gasp. “It’s just … I guess we’ve never even mentioned any of this since that big fight, have we?”

Mabel shook her head sadly. “We have a lot of catching up to do.” She ran her fingers through Dipper’s tousled hair affectionately. “It’s really sweet of you to be all concerned about it. But I really am over it!” She lightly pecked his nose. “And I love you,” she said softly, kissing his lips slowly and lovingly. After their mouths parted with a quiet smack, Dipper gazed up at Mabel with grateful adoration. She smiled back warmly. “You okay now?”

“Yeah!” Dipper murmured back, relieved.

“Good!” Mabel replied suavely with a suggestive grin, eyebrows waggling dramatically. She again began stroking Dipper's length, and he gasped. She slithered her way back down his body, kissing his skin along the way before pausing again at his belly button. She looked up, and this time instead of resistance, Mabel got a look of awed anticipation from her brother. She flashed a delighted, crafty smile and a huge wink at him while extending her tongue into his cute tummy hole. She was rewarded with another sharp intake of breath, and her hand felt his penis jerk with renewed vigor. “Hmmmmmmm!” she purred. “I count  _ two _ Dipsticks who seem to like what I’m doing!”

The shuddering exhale she got in reponse was an adorable combination of horniness and amused exasperation. Mabel giggled, quickly blew a kiss, and then scooted the rest of the way down to the bottom of bed. She hunched down on her knees between Dipper’s shaking legs, still focussing intently on his wide eyes. 

Finally, she lowered her attention to her target.

Dipper’s penis wasn’t exactly a stranger to Mabel, but she wasn’t terribly familiar with it up close, either. On their birthday in Portland and the week that had followed, they’d made love many times, trying a few different positions for intercourse. Dipper also proved to be very naturally skilled at going down on Mabel. But for whatever reasons, Mabel’s experience with orally pleasuring Dipper was limited to only a few unsatisfactory attempts. And this was to be her first time trying it since the disastrous evening in early September, the day their new relationship together was nearly destroyed. Dipper’s unintentional actions had left Mabel feeling horribly violated. Now months later, his member was directly in front of Mabel’s mouth again. 

And despite her assurances to Dipper moments before, she was not  _ nearly  _ as confident as she was trying to appear to be.

_ I’ll just get through this, _ she thought determinedly, not letting her worry affect her smiling facial muscles.  _ I’m not going to let these dumb fears get in the way of our relationship!  _

Slowly, tantalizingly, Mabel puckered her lips and kissed the hooded knob, hearing a small gasp from Dipper. She tilted her head and kissed her way down his shaft on one side, placed a little peck on the ballsack, and then up the other side. She could have sworn that it looked a bit longer than in September, and maybe a touch thicker, too.  _ Well of course, we’re both still growing,  _ she thought, and obliquely wondered how big he would get. She continued to give attention to his length up and down, finishing with a collection of kisses right on the sensitive tip.

_ I’ll force myself to do this, and it’ll make Dipper happy! He has to like it. They say every guy likes it! _

Sticking out her tongue, she gave the foreskin a lick, then another. She ducked her head and drew her tongue up from the base of the shaft all the way to the tip, like it was a popsicle. A soft groan came from above.  _ Well I’m doing something right, _ she thought, repeating the motion. She crawled higher to enable access to either side of Dipper’s manhood, bathing the shaft in her saliva as she went.  _ His curly hair has grown in thicker _ , she noticed as she continued to lap attention on every part of the organ.

_ When Dipper uses his mouth on me, it feels so wonderful! It’s only fair I do it for him in return. It’s worth it to do this for him, to pleasure him. He deserves to feel good. _

Mabel opened her mouth wide, remembering to tuck her lips over her teeth, and lowered her mouth over the head of the penis. Taking a deep breath through her nose, she pushed down further.  _ It’s not gross, it’s just skin,  _ she thought.  _ We just got out of the shower, so nothing is dirty about it. _ Running her tongue over the underside of the pole, she took as much as she could until his tip touched her tonsils.  _ Gag reflex! Gag reflex!  _ she panicked, then backed off quickly before her throat could convulse. Raising her head back up, Mabel directed some more saliva to the cause of lubrication, then went back down again.

_ Dipper won`t ever hurt me again. He’ll always be careful from now on, so it’ll be fine! And it’s really not so bad! I can totally see getting used to this. Eventually. Just gotta keep this smile on my face every time I pull off! _

Gradually Mabel became more proficient at the skill of applying suction while withdrawing, and swirling with her tongue and lips as she pushed in.  _ It’s like copying the way my hand strokes him, only wetter,  _ she pondered.  _ I bet it feels really good for him. At least I hope it does!  _

Over the next few minutes, she increased the speed of her motions, adding one hand to the action.  _ Man, my jaw and neck are getting kinda sore! _ she thought.  _ He should be close by now, shouldn’t he? _ Mabel slowed and lifted up, not quite pulling entirely off. She closed her lips around the head, forced the corners of her mouth up, and peered up to see how well Dipper was enjoying himself.

Dipper looked back at her, but it was not with a face she expected. There was no desire, no excitement in his expression. Instead, she saw …  _ worry! _ And this made Mabel also realize that over the last few minutes he hadn’t been squirming or twitching with delight like he normally did when he was all worked up. Nor had he been making his cute aroused noises. 

_He knows!_ Mabel thought. Against her will, her eyes widened and her smile fell. 

This was immediate confirmation for Dipper, and the muscles on his face instantly communicated to Mabel how he felt about her: intense sympathy, concern, protectiveness, even despair.  _ He knows I’m not liking this!  _ she thought.  _ He’s upset!  _ He shifted his arms, preparing to raise himself and sit up. He was undoubtedly going to stop her.

_ But this isn’t Dipper’s fault! He’s going to blame himself again! No, no. Poor Dip! The big goober, he can’t go through this again. I love him too much … too much to let him feel like that again! Quick, I need to let him know that this isn’t about him! I need him to know I LOVE him! Right now, Mabel! RIGHT BLEEPING NOW!! _

These thoughts flashed through Mabel’s mind in a split second. In any normal circumstance, acting on her frantic urge to communicate her love to Dipper would have resulted in her flinging her arms around him while babbling any words of love and devotion that came to mind. 

But this was not a normal circumstance, because at that moment her arms were wrapped around Dipper’s thighs, and the inside of her mouth was occupied by his penis.

Mabel’s instincts could not be suppressed, her need to prove to Dipper her powerful feelings for him would not be delayed. Her arms squeezed his legs tightly. Then as her eyes fluttered closed, a soft high-pitched sigh escaped as her mouth melted smoothly and tightly around his length, as if she were hugging and kissing all of him.

The reaction from Dipper was immediate. He groaned and gasped, and she felt his hips jerk slightly. 

_ Oh, that’s better! _ thought Mabel with relief. She was desperate to feel it again,  _ needed  _ to feel that Dipper knew how much he was loved. Without another thought, she pulled her head back and repeated the passionate embrace and massage of his penis with her mouth, accompanied by a louder noise of growing happiness. Dipper’s moan was also louder, his pelvic thrust more pronounced His arms gave out, and he fell back to the mattress.

_ Oooooohh, yes that’s SO much better! Why is this so different now? What changed?  _ This was now so natural, where just a moment ago it had felt uncomfortable. She hadn’t been herself before as she tried to please Dipper, she knew. It was like she was … a different person! 

_ I was wearing my Mabel mask again!  _ she realized. Mabel hadn’t consciously worn her “Mabel mask” for some time, not since the night she’d become furious with Dipper when he’d broken off their relationship the first time. It was a shield that she imagined for herself that she used to wear when she had to act the way others expected, the way she thought others wanted. When her true feelings had to remain hidden. Being in the role of wearing the mask had always felt tiring and stressful. It had caused her attempts to please Dipper to be dull, procedural, and soulless.

But now she knew that Dipper didn’t want the mask. He didn’t want her to do anything she didn’t want to do. Dipper wanted  _ her! _ The  _ real _ Mabel! He was obviously  _ very _ turned on by what the real Mabel was doing!

And to her joy, she now realized the real Mabel was free of any fear or apprehension of Dipper, and of anything that had happened before. There was nothing to fear about loving him any way they pleased! Dipper loved her completely, and she loved him just as much in return. She truly  _ wanted _ to do this for him! 

With the barricades finally removed from her mind, Mabel had no thoughts of steeling herself, and dismissed any dumb “techniques” for oral stimulation. Sighing and whimpering with desire and love, she just let go and made love to Dipper, using her mouth.

For his part, Dipper didn’t know what caused the change in Mabel. He knew her better than anyone, and had suspected she was not comfortable with what she was doing. But whatever happened when he began to sit up, the difference was incredible! In a matter of seconds, his sister had somehow subtly switched from performing a cold and clinical blowjob, to something that may have looked pretty much the same, but  _ felt _ mind-blowingly more erotic and passionate. This was not acting. This was  _ genuine!  _ Dipper knew Mabel’s heart and soul were into doing this for him now. 

He had no control over the increasing volume and pitch of the groans he made with every labored breath. While her tongue, lips, soft palate, and even occasional brushes of teeth attacked his straining erection with delicious physical stimulation, he was emotionally toppled over by waves of love and empathy that somehow emanated from her. 

Mabel adored every bit of her lover's helplessly aroused state.  _ These cute little balls look so lonely!  _ she gleefully thought, and like magic her fingertips were caressing the soft skin of the scrotum. 

The combination of Mabel's mouth and the sensual tickling caused a convulsion in Dipper's lower body. His hips thrusted strongly in sync with his knees bending and straightening repeatedly, and his groans sounded like exquisite agony. 

Suddenly Dipper was gasping rapidly. He gaped down with eyes huge from enormous sensations. “Oh  _ shit! _ ” he cried hoarsely. “ _ Mabes!!” _

For an instant, Mabel stopped and glanced up, a beautiful and unmistakably sincere smile somehow visible despite the fact her mouth was stuffed. Time stood still as their gazes locked, Dipper’s in shocked ecstasy, Mabel’s in total satisfaction. She felt his erection grow harder and thicker, quivering with built-up strain, and her fingers felt his testes pull up close to his body. Then she let her eyes close in contentment, engulfed Dipper’s penis deeply, and sucked and licked as hard as she could.

Dipper winced loudly in agonizing pleasure. His entire body went completely rigid as his penis erupted, projecting the first of several powerful spurts of warm semen into Mabel’s welcoming mouth. 

The force and volume of the stream surprised Mabel, but she kept her lips sealed tight and pistoned the shaft one last time, slowly but firmly. More of the thick, salty fluid was firing into the back of her throat, and she relaxed her cheeks as her mouth quickly started to fill. Dipper cried out desperately, finally able to take a breath after three strong shots, and the adorableness of the sound almost made Mabel choke as she struggled to not laugh in delight. 

The contractions quickly grew weaker in Mabel’s mouth, the pulses further apart, until she knew there would be no more seed to come. Carefully she pulled off and sat up on her knees, gathering her precious cargo on her tongue and in her cheeks. As she swished the viscous fluid around experimentally, she looked down to see her panting brother watching her in amazement. 

Dipper’s expression grew even more disbelieving when, with a saucy wink, Mabel swallowed the entire sticky load down in one gulp. “MMMMMMmmmmmmm _ MM? _ ” she hummed, taking a few deep breaths and smacking her lips. “That’s … not really all that bad!” she proclaimed matter-of-factly. Dipper could only gape dumbly. Mabel stroked his trembling thighs down to his knees. The saucy look spread to Mabel’s entire face. “I loved that,” she purred, “just like I love you.” 

Struggling to regain his poise, Dipper weakly held Mabel’s hip in one palm and her face in the other as she leaned forward to her hands and knees over his stomach. “Ohmygod …” Dipper gasped, “... Mabel … I  _ love _ you, too! …that was  _ amazing! _ … ” Mabel hummed appreciatively and settled herself lower, holding herself up over her brother’s heaving chest, their skin brushing lightly across each other. “… But oh man … I can’t believe … you  _ swallowed _ that!”

Mabel shrugged and crawled forward, sliding herself down to Dipper’s side. “It was no biggie!” she said smiling, snuggling in. “Can’t have you leaving your stuff all over my bed, can I Bro?” Dipper looked doubtful, and Mabel just had to mess with him. “Hey, I’ll have you know I’ve tasted and eaten a  _ lot  _ of weird stuff, man!” she stated proudly. “Dust, hair, bugs … stuff  _ way _ jankier than your Hot Dippin’ Sauce!” 

His incredulity at Mabel’s pun made Dipper blush, but he still couldn’t help but laugh. “Mabel!” he chuckled. 

She pecked his temple. “But seriously, the taste was … just really  _ different _ , okay? It was hot, and salty … a little sweet ... and kind of thick …” Mabel paused for a moment, then focused with a smug grin on dorky lover, “... kind of like  _ you! _ That’s how I’ll describe it! Your Dippin’ Sauce tastes like Dipper!” 

Dipper groaned pitifully, closing his eyes and knowing it wouldn’t be the last time he would be told how his semen tasted. Mabel cackled with joy and kissed him on the cheek. He smiled and tilted his head. She obliged the unspoken request and kissed him again, this time on the mouth. 

As their lips slowly parted after the long and gentle kiss, Dipper’s face had fallen. He touched Mabel’s cheek. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he whispered. “You said you were over it, but … you weren’t! I could tell. Why didn’t you want me to know how hard that was going to be for you?”

Mabel half-smiled in sympathy. “Because of  _ you _ , dummy!” she whispered back. “I knew you’d never let me try it again if you didn’t think I was okay. And I really  _ did  _ want to do it again, to prove to myself I could get over it.” Her smile bloomed to cover her entire face. “And as soon as I stopped thinking of your thing as a  _ thing _ , and that it was just  _ you _ …” she shrugged happily, “... ka-POOF!! End of brain cramp! I really  _ did _ get over it!”

“You’re sure?” Dipper asked, considerate and cautious as ever.

“I’m sure,” she replied quietly. “It’ll never be hard for me again.” Another snarky grin formed on her face, and she fingerwalked her hand across Dipper’s skin down to his groin. “Unlike  _ this _ …” she teased, grabbing her brother’s deflated tool, making him snort uncontrollably, “... which I demand be hard for me as much as possible!”

Dipper squirmed and laughed even harder, begging Mabel to stop tickling him. When he finally had his breathing back under control, he rolled over on top of his lover, kissing and nuzzling her all over her face and neck while caressing her arms, ribs, and breasts with his hands. She enjoyed the attention, relaxing and humming at the wonderful feeling of Dipper’s warm skin and soft lips all over her. Her breath caught when he moved down and took one of her nipples into his mouth, and she whined with increasing desire as he lavished the attention of his mouth on both of her breasts.

But when Dipper’s tongue dropped down to Mabel’s stomach, she felt her apprehension to where this was leading, similar to her brother’s concerns earlier. “Dipper …” she pleaded goofily, holding his hair to keep him still.

“Seriously?” said Dipper, legitimately confused. “C’mon, I  _ want _ to do this for you!”

Mabel reddened. “I know, but … maybe you should … just wait until …” Her voiced trailed off, clearly embarrassed to explain further.

Dipper’s confounded face made it clear he didn’t understand what the problem was, forcing Mabel to reluctantly go on. “It’s been a pretty long time since I’ve … you know ... “ she blushed again, “...  _ trimmed the hedges _ , so to speak …”

Understanding flashed across Dipper’s face, followed by more confusion. “Wait, what … is that  _ it?  _ That’s  _ all  _ that’s bothering you?”

“Well … yeah …cause I was feelin’ all poopy the last few months, I didn’t feel like doing the shaving thing,” she whined. “And now … it’s a real big garden of flipping dental floss down there!”

“Pfft! Mabel, I don’t care about that!” Dipper said with easy dismissal. “Every part of you is perfect! You look beautiful, you  _ feel _ beautiful …”  a sneaky finger had found its way lower down and started lazily tracing down Mabel’s outer lips, making Mabel gasp, “... and I want to make sure you still  _ taste _ beautiful!” He smiled bashfully. “Please?”

Mabel couldn’t help but melt for her brother’s sappy brand of sexy. Her hands lost their will to hold Dipper’s hair, and her legs parted easily.

* * *

“Leapin’ Leggy P. in a Pod! ” Mabel gasped heavily, brushing a lock of her hair away from her sweat-soaked forehead. “You got a totally talented tongue, young man!”

Dipper crawled up to Mabel’s side, his mouth tired and wet but smiling in happiness. “It was my pleasure, m’lady!”

Mabel threw her arms around Dipper as he collapsed beside her, and they held each other tightly as they shared another long, passionate kiss. Her breathing slowly returned to normal, and they relaxed in each other’s arms, their noses touching, gazing lovingly at one another.

“I love you,” they both murmured in unison, triggering twin smiles of contentment. Then they pulled each other even closer, pressed their cheeks together, and squeezed with their entire bodies as hard as they could. They both loved the closeness they felt from sharing their “not-so-awkward-sibling-hug” together.

After they finally released their grip on each other, Mabel shivered. “I kinda forgot how  _ cold _ it is up here,” she said, leaning over to grab a blanket off the floor. Pulling it up over them, she fell back next to Dipper and snuggled. “I need warming up!”

“I think this is how we got started!” Dipper snickered, but returned the snuggle regardless. “But really, we can’t stay here like this too much longer. Stan’s probably going to be back any time now.”

They hugged quietly for a long moment. Then Mabel broke the silence. “Dipper?”

“Hmm?” Dipper grunted back easily.

Mabel paused for a heartbeat, then continued carefully. “Why did you cut me off when I was going to explain to Grunkle Stan about your … belief? That God will let us stay together?”

Dipper tensed, then relaxed again. “Oh … that,” he mumbled. “I don’t know … you know how Stan is, he doesn’t believe in anything. I just …” He shrugged, looking down. “... I just know he wouldn’t understand. I’m not sure that  _ I _ understand! It was … I guess it’s just easier to not have to try to explain it to him, that’s all,” he finished morosely.

“He’s the only one who knows about us, Dipper,” Mabel said softly. “He may not like everything that we’ve done, but he’s supported us through all of this.” She ran her fingers through Dipper’s hair. “He loves us! And he knows everything else. Why not tell him this?”

“I know he loves us, but … he already thinks I’m weird, Mabel!” he grumbled defensively. “I’m a scrawny, weak little nerd, and I’m in love with my sister! And you want him to find out that I believe that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is protecting us from anyone finding out about us?” Dipper rolled over onto his back. “I just think this would make me look even worse.”

Mabel was saddened to see Dipper’s feelings of inferiority, and believed that Stan could help him with that. She decided to try one more time. “I don’t … I don’t want to have to lie to him, that’s all,” she said quietly.

Dipper exhaled impatiently. “You don’t have to  _ lie _ , Mabel, you just … don’t have to explain everything, either. If he wants to hear more, let me handle it. I’ll think of something that will satisfy him.” He looked at her directly. “C’mon, please?”

She reluctantly nodded, and Dipper hugged her. She returned the hug, but he felt a split-second hesitation, and he released her. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

Mabel bit her lip. “Nothing’s wrong.”

Dipper squinted. “Mabel?” he asked more seriously.

Huffing in frustration, Mabel sat up and swiped at the wetness that formed in her eyes. “How do you always know when I’m being a crybaby?”

“Cause I know you better than anyone,” Dipper replied quickly, sitting up beside Mabel and placing his hand on her leg. “Now ... what did I do? Did I say something wrong?”

“No,” Mabel said timidly. “Just … I just got scared for a second, that’s all.”

Dipper gripped his sister’s shoulders and leaned close to her face. “Tell me … please.”

Mabel waved her hand. “It was just a dumb thought that crossed my mind. Forget it!” 

But Dipper remained in front of Mabel, holding her tight, not letting her drop the subject. Giving in, she drew a deep breath. “It was just that you don’t want to tell Grunkle Stan everything … and that it seems so easy for you  … I thought …” she took another unsteady breath, “... I just wondered if you could ever do that … if you could ever lie like that … to  _ me! _ ” she whimpered as a tear rolled down her cheek.

“Oh Mabel no!” Dipper gasped. Looking like he’d been punched in the stomach, he lunged to Mabel’s mouth and kissed her franticly, a sob gathering in his chest until he couldn’t hold it in any longer. The cry burst out and he held her tightly. “Oh God, Mabel … I would  _ never _ do that to you!” he wept. “You’re the only one on earth that … that I could  _ never _ lie to!” He squeezed even tighter, burying his face in his lover’s neck. “Please … you have to believe me, Mabel!” he sobbed quietly.

Hearing and feeling Dipper’s despair easily pulled Mabel from her doubts. She cursed her feelings, making her think that her soulmate would be ever be capable of betraying her. She cried openly now, but in relief instead of worry. “Ah Dipper, I  _ do _ believe you! I’m such a jerky jerkface!” she sobbed as she hugged back. “I love you! I’m so sorry!”

“I love you too,” Dipper whispered. “I love you … so much!”

The cold air didn’t matter any longer. All that mattered was comforting and being there for each other. For several minutes, the twins just held each other securely. They felt like they could have remained there all day.

But the sound of a car pulling up the driveway outside signalled that Stan had returned from town. Suddenly they realized that neither of them wanted their uncle to find them naked together in bed. They giggled awkwardly and bolted off the bed to locate clean clothes, dressed quickly, and hurried down the stairs before Stan reached the door.

* * *

 


	14. Chapter 14

* * *

The following week was a bit like deja vu for the twins. Much like their final week of summer, they were together, happy, and on the same page, sharing all of their remaining time at Gravity Falls before boarding a bus for California. And in one significant way it was even better, because this time the twins didn’t have to be careful about masking their emotions around the Shack. There were no tourists, Soos and Wendy were not around, and of course Stan knew of their affair. Not that he tolerated overt displays of affection while he was around, but at least they didn’t need to be afraid of being overheard making suspicious noises, or being observed giving one another fond looks and little touches.

Their uncle understood their desire to enjoy their temporary freedom, but he also encouraged the young couple to not get too accustomed to it. They could be getting into bad habits, and little hints would quickly expose them if they weren’t careful. Drawing on his own broad experience in deceiving people, Stan likened the outward appearance of their relationship to a “long con”, and coached the twins on needing to train themselves to have a practiced facade that hid their true feelings for one another. Mabel bemoaned that she had to go back to wearing her Mabel Mask again. Stan did admit to her that everyone else’s knowledge of their historically close dynamic would cover up many suspicions. Still, there were definitely limits to what they could get away with if they only “toned down” their actions.

The kids also begrudgingly saw the wisdom of not getting used to falling asleep together in the same bed, but couldn’t promise that they would refrain for the week. Conserving body heat against the chilly air of the attic gave both of them a very convenient rationale to continue to do so while they were able to.

The discussion surrounding other bedroom activity was especially uncomfortable. As he handed over the box of condoms, Stan forced himself to verify with Dipper that he knew how to properly use them, and got them both to promise that Dipper would always wear one when they planned to have sex. He went through the list of physical and behavioral evidence that can accidentally be left behind after intercourse, and how easily their parents could discover it. 

Not that the twins were able to immediately indulge themselves in all things sexual. That same afternoon, Mabel’s period arrived, and with it came several days of self-imposed celibacy. The bloating and cramps didn’t put a substantial dent in Mabel’s happy mood. But she educated Dipper on the unsexy physical consequences that girls have to endure, and why she didn’t want to engage “that” part of her body for the time being. Mabel offered more than once to give Dipper her special oral treatment, but he shyly declined, wanting to wait until she could also receive the same treatment from him.

As a result, the teens didn’t want to stay cooped up in the Shack the entire time. They bundled up and explored around Gravity Falls in the winter for the first time. It was much quieter around than during the summer season, but having everything adorned with heaps of white snow and colorful decorations of the holiday season did make everything look nice. Stan took them to the lake where they tried their hands at ice fishing, but that was cut short when he developed a nosebleed, presumably from the dry cold air. After Stan assured the kids he was fine waiting in the car, Mabel convinced Dipper to try skating. It was something that Dipper’s ankles were not conditioned to do well at, but both of them still had a lot fun flailing about on the frozen lake surface.

The twins felt badly about the way their visit with Wendy happened the previous week, so the next afternoon on New Year’s Eve they asked to visit her again. She happily picked them up and drove them into town, provided they agreed to hang out with her crew of friends for the day. Nate and Lee were jovial as ever, and Thomson looked much more confident in his skin. Tambry seemed to be a good influence on Robby, as he was far less of a jerk than he had been the previous year, and the twins fit in with the older teens again quickly. Thompson took advantage of his access to the theater and sneaked everyone in for a private viewing of a movie, then afterward they all enjoyed a big plate of nachos along with cups of hot chocolate and coffee at Greasy’s Diner. Finally they all had fun setting off small firecrackers at the top of the bluff as they rang in the new year at midnight. When she dropped the kids off at the Shack in the wee hours, Wendy told them how cool it was to see her little buds back to their old selves again.

Following a quiet New Year’s Day, Soos came out to the Shack to have a visit after he took Melody back to Portland. He and the twins had a blast playing board games, then he took them to town for some old-time arcade gaming and a couple of rounds of laser tag. Like Wendy and her friends, he seemed oblivious to any unusual dynamic between Dipper and Mabel. 

Later that evening after dinner, Stan suggested he could teach the kids the right way to play poker. While Dipper liked the idea, Mabel stretched and yawned exaggeratedly, saying she was very tired, and looked pointedly at her brother. He asked her if she was all right, then suggested maybe she could turn in to get some rest while Stan gave him some pointers for the card game. Stan sighed and informed Dipper that knowing how to read facial and body signals is key to playing poker, and he obviously wasn’t ready to learn that yet. Dipper was still confused as Stan put the cards away, until Mabel took his hand and dragged him up the stairs.

Very shortly afterwards, Dipper successfully demonstrated his ability to roll on a condom and then use it for the job it was intended for. Fifteen minutes later, Mabel gave it a try with a second rubber, and proved equally proficient at the skill. This one served its purpose for quite some time longer than the first. 

A third condom was also sacrificed before the twins fell asleep that night.

Friday was the last full day before the bus ride home. Dipper and Mabel only came downstairs long enough for trips to the washroom and quick bites to eat, awkwardly avoiding eye contact with their uncle as much as possible. Stan barely saw the twins at all the entire day, and he supposed he couldn’t blame them.

* * *

“I wish you didn’t live so far away, Grunkle Stan!” Mabel whimpered, hugging her uncle tight.

The old man patted Mabel on back as he returned the embrace. “You and me both, Pumpkin.” 

Mabel sniffed and wiped her eyes as she pulled back from Stan’s cheek, turning her head at the sound of a shoe crunching on snow beside her. Dipper had just finished handing their bags to the bus driver, and now stood uncertainly.

“I … I want to thank you, Grunkle Stan,” he stammered. “For everything! I don’t … we don’t know what we’d have done without you.”

“Yeah,” Mabel added with a hard swallow. “You did a lot to help us … to protect us!”

Stan shrugged. “Hey, you ignored half of what I tried to tell you.” His expression turned sympathetic. “I’m just glad  _ some _ of what I did managed to help!”  

Dipper nodded gratefully and stepped into Stan’s other arm, and the Pines family all shared a close family squeeze. 

“You two are what you are to each other, and I get it,” Stan murmured quietly as he held them. “This is going to be tough for you, no matter what happens. Just … be careful! And take good care of each other!”

“We will,” Dipper mumbled into Stan’s shoulder.

Mabel wept lightly on Stan’s opposite shoulder. “We love you, Grunkle Stan!”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” Stan grumbled. He heard a clearing of a throat from the direction of the bus. “C’mon. The driver isn’t gonna wait all day on you kids.” He relaxed his arms and nudged them away. “You have to get your butts moving.”

The twins reluctantly stepped back. Picking up their carry-on packs, they walked slowly onto the coach stairs, waving and calling goodbye. 

“Good luck!” Stan called back while waving.

He watched through the windows as they found their way to the back seat of the mostly empty bus. Mabel frantically waved one last time as the driver wasted no time pulling away from the side of the road. Soon the roar of the exhaust faded, and the taillights disappeared from view over a hill beneath the late afternoon setting sun.

“You're gonna need it,” Stan said sadly to himself, then slowly turned back to his car.

* * *

The first several miles were spent in relative quiet, the twins lost in their thoughts. Dipper held Mabel’s hand as they watched the rural Oregon scenery stream past the window.

Mabel broke the silence. “How’s your new pills going? Are they still working?”

“Yeah, actually!” Dipper replied. “Last weekend I had still been been feeling the cravings first thing in the morning and the end of the day, but the last few days have been good. I’m down to one Methadone daily, as of this morning.” 

Dipper felt Mabel squeeze his hand. “That’s  _ good _ , Dip! I’m really proud of you!” she said.

He squeezed back on Mabel’s hand, one side of his mouth twitching up. “I  _ think  _ I’ve kicked it, but I’ll know for sure next week.” His eyes fell, his expression turning somber. “I know I never want to have pills like that in the house again. For …  _ either _ of us!”

Mabel looped her arm through Dipper’s and she pulled herself close. “I’m sorry about all that crazy stuff I said about wanting those pills,” she said quietly, staring at the seatback in front of her. “And for all the other stuff about … hurting myself.”

Dipper’s gaze also was fixed vacantly straight ahead. “I was really scared,” he replied almost inaudibly, unconsciously pulling tighter on Mabel’s arm. 

“I know, cause I was too!” Mabel admitted. “I didn’t know how to handle all the junk I was feeling. And the meds I was on really didn’t seem to be helping.”

Her brother quickly glanced over to her with knit eyebrows. “Wait, the meds you  _ were  _ on?” Dipper inquired. “You stopped taking the Prozac?” Mabel nodded. “When did this happen?”

“Last weekend,” she quipped, clearly unconcerned. When Dipper’s frown did not disappear, Mabel sighed. “Dipper, putting all of our poop in the past was all I needed. I’m fine! I  _ never  _ felt like I was being helped by the antidepressants, anyways!”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true,” Dipper allowed. “But what are Mom and Dad going to say?”

Mabel shrugged. “I dunno … If I don’t need ‘em, they wouldn’t want me to be taking drugs I don’t need, would they?”

“No, I suppose not. But this  _ does _ raise another problem we need to talk about,” Dipper said.

“You mean Daddy and Mama,” Mabel acknowledged. “What are we gonna tell them about why we’re all fine and dandy again all of a sudden after our extra time at Gravity Falls?”

Dipper nodded gravely. “Right. They never really bothered either of us all this time about finding out what happened in September because we’ve both been really down. But now … when they see both of us  _ happy  _ again, they’ll want to know everything.”

Mabel pursed her lips in dramatic thought, a sly grin on her face. “I don’t suppose we could  _ act  _ like we’re still all angsty and stuff, could we?”

“Yeah, right!” Dipper chuckled. “Just what we need, another layer of lies and deception to try to keep straight.” Mabel stuck out her tongue, a silly gesture which Dipper returned. “But seriously, Mabes. We need to come up with something.”

The playful look on Mabel’s face fell away and she became pensive. “Actuaaaaaaa-ally,” she began, “I  _ do _ have an idea, but …”

“But what?” Dipper prompted.

“... but it kindaaaaaaa … really makes you look …” Mabel peered at Dipper with remorse, “...  _ bad! _ ”

“It’s okay,” Dipper said after steeling himself, “let me hear it.”

Mabel hemmed and hawed, then explained. “The first time they knew that something was wrong was the night you … you know … broke everything off.” Her voice faltered at the memory. “And I got  _ really _ mad! Did you ever explain to them anything about what happened?” Dipper shook his head. “Me neither. So … I’m thinking we could tell them that we were studying in your room, and I started teasing you about something. Something  _ really  _ mean, like maybe that you’d never get yourself a girlfriend, or whatever. And I didn’t stop, I kept teasing you over and over. And finally …” Mabel took a deep breath, “... we say you had enough, and … you …” she gazed at Dipper apologetically, “…  _ hit _ me.” 

Dipper paled. He couldn’t  _ imagine  _ striking his twin! Their parents would be completely shocked by the suggestion that he could do this. But then he quickly saw that the absurdity of the idea was precisely what they were looking for! For Mabel to have had such a furious reaction, for Dipper to have been so forlorn … it deftly explained what could have caused Dipper to walk out the afternoon he got mugged in Oakland. And from there all the hard feelings that followed, evident for everyone to see. It was also a completely rational reason for the twins to not want to talk about it to their parents. As horrible as it was, it was a perfect explanation!

“I’m sorry!” Mabel whispered meekly.

“No, it’s okay,” Dipper said shakily, “that actually sounds good. Well, no … it sounds  _ terrible _ , but … I think that could work.” He rubbed his forehead. “But what about why we’re better now? In this story, what happened this past week to explain how you could forgive me for that?”

After a moment of thought, Mabel half-smiled sardonically. “Well, I  _ did _ slug you and knocked you out.” She softly placed her hand on Dipper’s cheek. “Sorry again for that!” she said gently.

Dipper snorted dismissively. “Mabel, I don’t care about that!”

“Still, maybe we tell them a small bit of the truth. We say you hit me, so I clocked you back, and … now we’ve called it even?” 

“You think Dad would just let that be the end of it?” Dipper mused. “That his kids now solve their disagreements by punching each other?” 

“I guess not,” Mabel conceded. Then her face lit up. “Wait, I’ll know we’ll tell them! We won’t tell a small  _ bit _ of truth!” She paused dramatically as Dipper looked questioningly at her. “We’ll tell them something that actually  _ is _ the truth!” 

Dipper’s expression was transformed into disbelief of Mabel’s sanity. She waved her hand. “Not  _ that _ truth, silly!” she admonished him. “The part about how you found your faith! When you told me what happened to you, when you gave yourself up, all the hurt and mistrust that I felt … just  _ went away _ ! Sure, I won’t I’ll tell them  _ everything _ , but that really was the moment I knew you would be with me, and you wouldn’t ever hurt me again!” She giggled lightly. “Why  _ shouldn’t  _ that be the moment when I forgave you for something stupid you did? It actually was!” Mabel tilted her head when she didn’t read complete agreement on her brother’s face. “You don’t want to tell them, Dip? You’re not gonna hide your belief from Daddy and Mama, are you?”

“Oh no, not at all!” Dipper replied carefully. “I just … I’m having trouble separating that moment from  _ us! _ From us  _ together! _ ” He relaxed after a moment’s thought. “But that’s cool that you look at that moment in that way. And yeah, we totally can tell them that was when we sorted things out between us.” 

Mabel looked pleased with her own cleverness. “Good! It makes it easier to tell a fib about something when most of it is actually real! It’ll be a lot better for when I go back to church.”

That stirred a question that had been on Dipper’s mind. “Mabel … what do  _ you _ believe? I mean, you don’t  _ have _ to follow along with me, if you don’t want t-”

“Dipper, I’m not at all sure  _ what _ I believe,” Mabel interjected, “but I’m open to everything, and for now I’m  _ more _ than happy sharing your journey with you.” Dipper smiled warmly, happy that Mabel wasn’t feeling forced or uncomfortable with his religious conversion. Mabel smiled back fondly. Then she remembered something. “Wait! That huge black Bible of yours! Where did that come from anyways? I’ve never seen it before, and I didn’t see you pack it in your suitcase.”

“Well … I  _ didn’t _ pack it,” admitted Dipper. “I have ...  a secret hiding place for it at the Shack.”

“Really? Cool!” Mabel’s eyes were huge with the promise of old familiar intrigue that she associated with their adventures in Gravity Falls. “Where is it?”

It was Dipper’s turn to be very satisfied with himself. “It wouldn’t be a  _ secret _ if I told anyone, would it?”

“Ah man! You’re not even gonna tell me?” Mabel pouted adorably. “When we go back, I am  _ so  _ gonna find your mysterious hidey hole!” She poked Dipper in the stomach, triggering a mini tickle fight. Quickly they were laughing uncontrollably as they poked mitten-clad hands anywhere they could reach to try to force the other to submit. Finally Mabel wrestled Dipper down onto his back on the coach seats and attacked his ribs mercilessly, leaving Dipper helpless and unable to breathe, he was laughing so hard. Mabel accepted his surrender. “I’m  _ always _ gonna be the Alpha Twin, you know!” she smirked.

Gasping hard, Dipper sat up and blushed sheepishly at the stares they received from some of the other passengers, separated from them by several rows of empty seats. “Fine!” he chuckled quietly. “I pledge my loyalty to you, my Alpha! You happy?”

“For now!” Mabel proclaimed with smugness. Dipper sat back in the corner next to the window, and Mabel settled in close beside him. “I’ve missed doing dumb stuff like this with you,” she sighed. “I’m so glad we’re back to this again!”

“Yeah,” smiled Dipper, accepting Mabel’s weight on himself. “Just like the good old days.”

Mabel suddenly turned to Dipper. “Wait a minute!” she demanded excitedly. “Hold the gosh-darned phone!”

Dipper shook his head in bemusement at his unpredictable sister. “Yes?”

“We had a great time this week, right?” Mabel asked. “Not … up in the attic ...  but the other stuff! Dumb, innocent stuff that’s fun!” Her brother nodded agreement. “Well do you know when was the last time we had fun like that together?”

“Uhh …” Dipper tried to think of such a time. “Not recently, for sure.” He couldn’t think of a single light-hearted moment in California the entire autumn: he and Mabel had been angry, frightened, saddened, or passionate, but never had it been just plain-old fun. Even their last week of summer had been dedicated exclusively to their new romantic feelings for each other. “I guess I’d say … our birthday in Portland?”

“Correct-a-mundo!” Mabel declared. “There might have been other things on our minds that day, but until we got back to the hotel, that was a  _ fun _ day! And so were a bunch of days before that! Then with everything that happened after that night, everything changed!  _ We  _ changed!”

“Well, yeah! Obviously!” Dipper said, confused. “We realized we loved each other. Of course we changed.”

“But it’s  _ how _ we changed, Dipper!” she cried, frustrated over her inability to articulate her thoughts. “Here, think of it this way … After our birthday, how would you describe your relationship to me?”

Dipper didn’t hesitate. “Boyfriend.” Then a shy smile. “Lover.”

Mabel raised a finger. “And other than ‘brother’ or ‘twin’, how would you describe your relationship to me  _ before _ our birthday?”

He only paused for a moment. “Friend.” And then another smile, this one full of understanding. “ _ Best _ friend!”

“Exactly!” Mabel exclaimed. “We were so new at this, so busy figuring out how to be lovers, we forgot to be  _ friends! _ ” She grabbed Dipper’s hand excitedly. “You have always been my Bee-Eff-Eff, Dip-Dop! But it never felt like it after all this started happening.”

“You’re right!” Dipper muttered, amazed at how dense they both had been all this time. “I gave up being your friend by trying to be your boyfriend … when what really I should have been able to be …”

“... is  _ both! _ ” the twins said in unison.

Mabel nodded excitedly. “If we can remember that, this whole thing will be so much easier on us, won’t it?”

Dipper agreed. “Yeah! Man, it’s crazy we never saw this before.”

“And we can’t be  _ all  _ things to each other,” Mabel added. “Part of what made this past week so much fun was spending time with friends. I need to make things better with my old posse at school. And you with your nerd friends.”

“And we can’t ignore Mom and Dad anymore, either,” Dipper pointed out. “We have to be careful, but we’ll all be happier if we aren’t  _ scared  _ of them. Then they’ll go back to treating us normally.”

Mabel grinned. “If Mama and Daddy think everything is just fine again …”

Dipper grinned back. “... then maybe we’ll get some time  _ alone _ again!” He puffed his chest proudly. “I can learn to take some risks!”

Mabel wagged her finger mockingly. “But not  _ too _ big of a risk, mister!”

The twins laughed, happy and relaxed. The sky was darkening fast, and there were hours to go before their next stop. They agreed to take a nap, much as the others on the bus appeared to be doing. Dipper sat up straight, his feet dangling off the floor, while Mabel tucked her feet under herself, and she leaned her cheek on her broseph;s shoulder and got comfortable. Dipper’s arm wrapped easily around her.

“You know, for as many mistakes as we’ve made since our birthday, there is  _ one _ thing we did that is exactly right,” Dipper yawned, with his own cheek resting on Mabel’s head. 

“Yeah? What’s that?” muttered Mabel sleepily, her eyes heavy.

Dipper brought his free arm across his body, the knuckles of his fist touching Mabel’s thigh. She smiled and lazily bumped her own fist onto his as her eyes closed.

“I love you, too,” the twins whispered together.

They fell asleep as the bus moved steadily down the highway, to their home, their future together about to be written again.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you have it, folks: at long last, the struggle to finish this story is finally complete! I’m hoping that everyone who has stayed with me on this understands and forgives me for the literal years this story required. It was a combination of personal life struggles at home for me, and the discovery that I find writing angsty, tragic stuff to be very, very taxing on me. For several chapters, it was quite literally painful to write this story.
> 
> When I laid out the outline for this story back in late March / early April of 2015, I wanted this story to be the “opposite” to Fistbump. My original fic was all about serendipity, event after event on a magical day that perfectly led the twins to a wonderful revelation, but then concluding with a hard punch to the gut in the end. This would be the reverse: the twins would battle against cruel circumstances for the entire length of the story, before finally reaching a happy conclusion. I hope it makes for an effective counterpoint, and that both stories are stronger as a result.
> 
> I also want to point out why I portrayed Mabel’s behavior the way I did over the course of this story. At the conclusion of the first story, this happy girl was traumatized in a way she had never been before. She was told that she had to simply stop a relationship of intense and perfect love with Dipper, while still being around him at all times. The loss she experienced pushes her into the first stage the classic “Five Stages of Grieving”: Denial. She spent the first 5 ½ chapters of this story denying that the relationship ended at all (and even denying the violation she felt over Dipper’s mistake in bed in Chapter 3). Only when Dipper forced her to face that they couldn’t continue the way they had been, did she move to Stage 2 (Anger), which occurred through Chapter 7. Stage 3 (Bargaining) was triggered by Dipper’s hospitalization in Chapter 8, but when she realized that the situation was not going to go back to the way it was, she finally fell into Depression (Stage 4). She might have been able to reach the Acceptance stage (Stage 5), if not for the conclusion of this story resulting in the re-starting of their relationship together.
> 
> (Dipper’s reactions did not follow the same pattern as Mabel’s because of Dipper’s more pragmatic nature, and due to the fact that he was thrust into simply trying to cope with Mabel’s changing states. Obviously, Dipper felt the same feelings of loss, but he buried his own pain, choosing to let remorse and guilt be the triggers for his outward behavior.)
> 
> Well, enough of all that. Glad that I’ve finally completed the story, and that you have a happy ending!
> 
> E-o-F
> 
> (PS: Watch for the Epilogue to this story, coming in a couple of days.)


	15. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here’s what’s going on:
> 
> Chapter 14 was the canon end of “Fistbump 2: Unspeakable”. I will be following that story up with more stories of Dipper and Mabel as they return to California after their reconciliation in Gravity Falls over the Christmas holidays. I hope you will enjoy them as I write them in the future.
> 
> So what is this epilogue? This is an optional ending that I wrote for the story of Fistbump 2: an ending that was fun to write, but is actually NOT a part of the story. It’s an unofficial bonus. Think of it as a “DVD Special” ending. Keep this in mind as you read it, as some will find the implications unpleasant.

* * *

After watching the kids’ bus pull away from the transit stop, Stan started driving back to the Mystery Shack. Every time he had to say goodbye to them, it seemed to get harder and harder. They were such good kids, and so much seemed to always be happening to them, he just wanted them to be safe and happy. He was still uncomfortable with accepting them being in love with each other, and more than a bit creeped out with what they did together, but he now knew that they truly belonged with and needed each other. They were no different in that respect than any other lovers.  

He was alone again. With the Shack closed to tourists for the winter, Stan enjoyed the freedom of being able to lounge around in his boxers and undershirt, pretty much all the time. The only problem was the heat bills, but his comfort was worth it! 

Late that evening, he remembered that now that the twins were gone, he could close off the attic again. No point in wasting heat, since no one would be up there again until next summer, if the twins returned again. He was looking forward to them coming back, as he climbed the stairs to make sure the attic was tidied up before readying the space for the rest of the winter.

Entering the main room, he was pleased that the kids had pulled everything off the mattresses already. The sheets had been stripped off the beds and deposited in a laundry basket by the door. He smiled as he thought how considerate they were, then his face slowly transformed to a grimace as he imagined what had happened on those sheets over the last several days.  _ Yeah … better not look at these sheets too closely before washing them,  _ he thought with a shiver.

After checking that the small window was securely closed, he turned to head back to the door when he stubbed his toe hard on the edge of a raised floorboard. “Ow! Son of a bitch!” he yelled, grabbing his sore foot while hopping on the other.

After the pain receded a bit, he knelt down to look at the offending plank.  _ Weird,  _ he thought,  _ there are tiny holes where the nails are supposed to be. This board was pulled up! _ Then he noticed that two more boards beside it had similar missing nails.

Curious, he pried at the raised board, and all three boards, formed into an oddly-shaped panel, lifted out of the floor. They had been fastened together on the bottom with screws so that it functioned like a single piece. Beneath the panel was a cavity between the floor beams. A board had been fashioned to give the space a floor. It was a secret storage space that Stan knew nothing about!

It contained one item: a very thick book, with a heavy black binding and matching heavy front and back covers. Stan recognized it: he’d seen Dipper reading it at various times over the last summer, and a couple of times right around Christmas Day, when he had poked his head up to say it was time for dinner or whatnot. Dipper never brought the book downstairs. He now looked at the inscription on the front: there was a simple white cross and the words “Holy Bible” above it, printed in a clear bold font.

Stan was not a religious man, and he thought he knew Dipper.  _ That’s a surprise,  _ he mused.  _ Never figured the kid to be a thumper like his parents! _ Then he shrugged his shoulders.  _ Oh well, who am I to judge? I guess he hid it up here because he thought I’d tease him, or something. If he wants to keep it up here, fine by me! _

As he started placing the book back into the floor, something caught his eye. There were slightly thicker pages in the book, so that they divided the book into different sections. Even a guy like Stan knew that a Bible had two sections: the Old Testament and the much smaller New Testament. But he could see that  _ this _ Bible was divided into  _ three _ , roughly equal-sized sections.

Stan opened the front cover of the book. He was shocked to see a black and white image of a six-fingered hand, with a large “1” in its middle. He quickly leafed through the book. It was a complete photocopy of Stanford’s journals. All three of them!

He silently cursed his great nephew.  _ Leave it to Dipper to do something like this,  _ thinking back to when the original journals had been destroyed.  _ He must have somehow copied them shortly after Ford’s return his first summer here, after he learned I had the first two volumes. Probably wanted to have a backup, just in case. And covered it up by disguising it as a book he figured I’d never look at. Smart kid! Maybe  _ too _ smart! _

The journals were too dangerous, and Stan couldn’t let Dipper keep this secret copy. Carrying it down the stairs, he wondered if Dipper would even say anything when he returned next time and found it missing: he couldn’t very well complain that someone had taken something from him, when he wasn’t supposed to have it in the first place! He grinned wickedly as he wished he could be a fly on the wall and see Dipper’s face when he found the cavity in the floor empty.

He approached the Shack’s fireplace, which was roaring nicely. The copy of the journals would burn up quickly, and that would be that.

Just as he was about to toss it into the flames, he noticed one last detail about the book. A small bookmark was visible in the pages on the top edge. Unable to resist, he wanted to see what Dipper had been looking up, the last thing the kid would ever see in the cursed journals. The bookmark was placed near the end of the 2 nd volume. He placed his finger on the spot and flipped the book open to the marked page.

His blood ran cold as he processed what he saw on the page. The implications were terrifying. For several moments he couldn’t move.

“Kid!” he finally spoke aloud in the empty house, his voice shaking. “What the hell did you  _ do? _ ”

* * *

Dipper opened his eyes, a small cramp in his leg from his awkward position on the bus seats rousing him from sleep. He smiled as he saw that Mabel was still dozing, her head comfortable on his shoulder, so light, almost weightless.

_ But … why does she look so pale? And … why is everything on the bus… in black and white? _

The smile dropped from his face. Tentatively, he reached to touch Mabel’s hair with his free hand. Even though he pretty much expected it, he still felt shocked discomfort as his hand passed right through her locks, like he was a ghost. He took a deep breath, then stood up and turned around, curiously observing his corporeal body still in its seat and sound asleep, still providing his sister with a shoulder to sleep on.

Dipper stepped out into the aisle. The bus continued to cruise down the highway, gently rocking the passengers with each bump and curve on the road. Strangely, he was also affected by the motion, while being completely invisible and insubstantial to the other passengers.

He sighed impatiently, looking forward the length of the bus.

“All right!” he called out loudly. “What do you want?”

“You, of course!” shouted a loud, irritating voice directly behind him.

Dipper yelped loudly, startled by the glowing yellow triangular demon that now floated less than an inch behind his head, laughing hysterically. The apparition looked ridiculous as always: a single large eye on his face and cartoonish arms, legs, and top hat. But Dipper knew how dangerous and powerful he could be.

He wasn’t happy to be seeing Bill Cipher again. 

Not so soon.

“Bill!” Dipper cried angrily. “Why are you here again now?”

“Relax, Pine Tree!” Bill replied casually. “I was just watching those dreams of yours. You know, you humans usually find thoughts like that pretty messed up!”

“Shut up, Bill!” Dipper fired back. “It’s none of your business!”

“Considering our …  _ deal …  _ last week, I’d say it  _ is _ my business.” 

Unconsciously, Dipper’s hands started balling into fists. Bill twirled his cane as he hovered around Dipper in a circle, forcing Dipper to turn with him. The demon’s eye narrowed in thought.

“I’ve put some thought into this, Pine Tree,” he said. “You are the most unique human I’ve ever dealt with, and for somebody so young, you’re actually not as dumb as I first thought.” He paused dramatically. “When you and I made our first deal, I took advantage of you. You had no time to think about what I was offering, to clarify what kind of ‘puppet’ I wanted. I mean, you do know I  _ really _ screwed you over, don’t you kid?” Dipper scowled at the memory. “I've decided that wasn't fair to you. So, against my better judgement, I’ve going to offer you something for free, no obligation!”

“Bill,  _ everything  _ you do has strings attached,” Dipper retorted. “Why would I believe you now?”

“You don’t have to! But I’m offering it anyways, just because I’m such a great guy!” Bill declared with delight. “Here’s my offer! I’m giving you a chance to go back on the deal we made last week, now that you’ve had more time to think about it. Any regrets? Second thoughts? Just tell me, and I wipe the slate clean. Promise! And I’ll even give you time to think about it!”

Bill snickered and did a fast shuffle-step dance, extending his cane to one side with one hand and doffing his hat with the other. “An hour should be more than enough! See you then! BY-YEE!!” The triangular trickster flashed out of Dipper’s sight.

Dipper gaped at the empty space in front of him.  _ He's giving me an out? After he got exactly what he wanted? _

His memory flashed back to the previous week, the night after his parents left to return to California.

* * *

_ My eyes were wide open, fully adjusted to the dark of Great-Uncle Ford’s room in the Mystery Shack. I had the alarm on my phone set to vibrate under my pillow for 4am, but it wasn’t necessary. I hadn’t fallen asleep in the first place. _

_ I was glad I had already decided to be alone that night. While Mabel usually sleeps like a stone at even the worst of times, it was safer than trying to sneak out with her sleeping a few feet away. I got dressed in my jeans and sweatshirt, slid the “bible” and a small sack out from under the bed, wrapped them up in my jeans and sweatshirt, then quietly out to the porch door. I quickly bundled up in my winter coat and boots, having if possible even less concern about waking Grunkle Stan. Seriously, I could have probably done all this preparation right in his bedroom and he’d still sleep through it. Then I pulled on my gloves, checked that I had my flashlight, put the book under my arm, grabbed the sack, and quickly slipped out into the night. _

_ The weather was cold that night, well below freezing, but incredibly clear, calm, and quiet. There was no moon, but the endless stars and the sparkly reflection off the frozen snow still provided some illumination. As I left the tramped-down foot path and headed off into the woods, each step that broke through the snow’s crusty surface sounded like a shot from a gun. _

_ I arrived at the clearing, the same clearing that Mabel and Soos had told me about a year and a half ago. I found a spot as close to the center of the clearing as I could, and took out eight candles from the sack, arranging them in a circle. Pulling out my flashlight and opening to the marked page from Journal 2, I checked that the size and positioning of the candles was correct. With the book of matches that I had also packed, I quickly had the candles all lit. The effect of the yellow circular glow of the candles combined with the bluish hue of the starlight to give the clearing an eerie quality.  _

_ The Shack wasn’t really that far from this clearing, and I was a little worried about how far my voice would carry, but there was no time left to worry about that. Tucking the flashlight under my arm so that I could read, I held the heavy book out in front of me. I was fairly sure that I had memorized the incantation, but I couldn’t afford to make a mistake. The spell had to be cast perfectly. _

_ “Triangulum! Entangulum! Veneforis dominus ventium! Veneforis venetisarium!” _

_ At first nothing happened. I started to check the Latin words again, to make sure that I had pronounced them correctly. As I shone the flashlight down to the page, the phrasing just looked … ridiculous! I snorted, then looked at the drawing of the circular wheel on the opposite page, with a now-familiar image of his nemesis at its center. Then all the writings on the pages. It was all so hilarious! Chuckling, I looked at the circle of candles, then the trees and the snow around me. My laughter burst out fully as I beheld the sky, and beyond to the whole cosmos of planets, stars, and galaxies! I couldn’t control myself. I’m sure I sounded crazy as I spun around in glee, laughing in full-throated uproar. Somehow, as I was experiencing this revelation, the universe was simply  _ hysterical!

_ But the levity was short-lived. In a flash, it felt like I was punched in the gut.  _ Really _ hard! I doubled over in pain, and struggled to breathe after getting the wind knocked out of me. Then came the most terrifying experience: it felt like something had taken control of my body, with me still inside. All my senses still sent their messages to my brain, but my body wasn’t following my orders! I watched helpless from inside my eyes as my body fell to its knees, then pain exploded everywhere in my arms and torso as I was being stretched, my arms backwards and down toward the snow, while my chest was thrust towards the sky. Every muscle twitched with the strain of the effort. _

_ I wanted to scream out in agony, but even that was denied me. Instead, I felt my mouth move, and my chest and throat muscles flex of their own accord as my body shouted out a nonsense phrase, which sounded something like “Egassem Sdrawkcab.” At least six times, the phrase was literally yanked from my lungs by some unseen force, each louder and higher pitched than the last. My arms were raised and stretched wide to my sides, and I probably had the look of someone who had been crucified. _

_ Then I was released, and I collapsed onto the snow. As I pushed myself up to my hands and knees, I felt wind blowing, then came a flash of light that marked the creation of a three-sided hole in the air, directly in front and above me, the edges of which immediately burst into flames. Sounds of maniacal laughter erupted from all around as an eyeball formed in the rift. The wind whipped up like a tornado, pelting my face with frozen powdered snow, as I struggled to my feet. I’m sure the whole presentation would have been horrifying if I didn’t already know what was going to emerge. _

_ Finally, with a comical little “whup” noise, all the energy of the area collapsed into the rift, leaving a triangular-shaped demon floating in front of me.  _

_ Last year, I had helped join together all the forces required to banish Bill Cipher, seemingly forever. Now, I had just released him once again.  _

_ I hoped I knew what I was doing. _

_ Bill looked around, somehow making it obvious that he was feeling relief, despite his lack of most facial features. “Oh, once again! Gravity Falls, my favorite petri dish in the universe! What’s going …” Then he stopped as his eye focused on me.  _

_ His body transformed, turning bright red and growing to immense size in an instant, looming directly over me. “YOU!!!” his voice shouted, impossibly low and loud, literally shaking me off my feet onto my butt.  _

_ “Bill!” I called out.  _

_ “You’re responsible for destroying my plans!” he thundered. “YOU’RE responsible for sending me out of here!” His body twisted, enveloping me from all sides. “DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT I’M GOING TO DO TO YOU???” _

_ The demonic force collapsed around my body, constricting me like an enormous python. “BILL  !!” I yelled in a panic. “I want to make a DEAL with you!! _

_ A millisecond later, Bill had shrunk back to his regular yellow appearance, leaving me staggering. “Well, why didn’t you say so?” he said happily, without missing a beat. “I’m always up to making deals! What is it you want, Pine Tree? We can discuss terms on anything I can do for you!” _

_ Struggling to slow my heart after the quick scare, I swallowed, and closed my eyes. This is when I told this little apparition from hell why I summoned him. Why I so desperately needed him.  _

_ I looked the demon in his eye. _

_ “I need the universe to let me love my sister!” I shouted angrily. Or at least tried to, but by the time I finished the short sentence, my throat had closed and my eyes were wet. Saying it out loud reinforced just how important this was to me. _

_ Bill blinked. “Wow! Didn’t expect  _ that _ from you, kid! I didn’t think I could be surprised by anything!” He paused, his eye narrowing. “Exactly what do you want?” _

_ I cleared my throat, and spilled my guts. “I want to be allowed to be in love with Mabel, and that she be allowed to love me! I want to experience being in love with her the way other people do, with their true loves! I don’t want to always be afraid of our parents finding out, and separating us! I don’t want to always be looking around for neighbors, friends, church members, or anybody else seeing us and being disgusted.” My deepest wishes kept tumbling out, as my voice grew ragged. “I want Mabel to be happy, and not have to worry about depression. I … I don’t want to be scared that if I leave her alone, the next time I see her … “ I stopped to gasp a breath, “will be her body hanging in ... in the attic with a r- ... a rope around her neck ...” Rivers of tears were running down my face, and I couldn’t say anything more. Silence returned to the clearing, the exception of my quiet sobs. _

_ “You’re asking a lot, kid.” Bill said, after a time. I could have sworn I heard something approaching sympathy in his voice. Might have been wishful thinking, though. “I can’t change anything about the personalities or actions of anybody. If your parents, or other people in your life, don’t want you and your sister together, I can’t change their minds. And I can’t stop them them from doing what they think they need to do.” _

_ I felt a panic rising. My sobs were transforming into hyperventilation. Had I released this cursed devil for nothing? _

_ “But,” he added shrewdly, “I  _ can _ do some things to control how people perceive the world around them! It’s easy when they’re dreaming, but there are small things I can do even when they’re awake.” Bill’s eye narrowed again as he thought about my request. _

_ “So how about this, Pine Tree? I watch you and Shooting Star all the time. Twenty-four seven! If there is anyone around you who knows you’re siblings, and you do anything ‘inappropriate’,” he paused to close his eye dramatically, then looked at me again and kind of shrugged. “Ha ha! It’s hard to wink with only one eye! Never mind! If the two of you do anything that would cause suspicion of, ahem, romantic feelings for each other, I’ll make sure they don’t notice you.” _

_ “Wh ... what do you mean?” I stammered, wanting to make sure Bill wasn’t tricking me. _

_ “I mean if you’re holding hands in the park or a movie, I’ll make sure not a single person you know will ever see you. If you’re alone at home, I’ll make sure it stays that way if you need it to. If you’re getting frisky in your room, I’ll make sure neither of your parents open your bedroom door. If you stare at one another too long in front of your parents, I’ll make sure their heads are turned away.” _

_ This sounded to me like it could work! “How many people at a time can you do this to?” _

_ “As many as you need, kid! You could lay a big, wet smooch on your sister in the middle of church service, and not a single person would notice! You could get  _ real  _ kinky if you wanted! If you both got naked right on the floor in the middle of your family reunion, I’d make sure not a soul would be the wiser!” I blushed as I thought about how brazen Mabel and I could be.  _

_ “But … your sister might wonder how you’re doing that, though! You wouldn’t want her to know about how you got access to this power, would you? About how a certain being of pure energy got released back to Gravity Falls again ... now … would … you?” _

_ “You’re right,” I said, thinking. “I can make sure that I  _ act _ like we need to be careful, but I’ll know that we never actually have to worry about it!”  _

_ “And one more thing,” Bill stated. “It’s a real problem trying to change anyone’s memories. Anyone who already knows about you lovebirds, well, I can’t change that. And since they’re already aware of you together, I can’t do anything to prevent those people from being able to see and hear you as you really are.” _

_ “The only person who knows is Grunkle Stan, and I know he won’t tell anyone.” I looked up excitedly. “Yes, Bill, that’s what I want you to do!” _

_ “Ah ah ahhh! Not so fast!” Bill responded sharply. I remembered there was more to this. “You might want to consider what I’m going to ask from you in return.” _

_ I was ready with my argument. “I already released you, Bill! That’s more than payment enough, and  _ you _ owe  _ me _! Do what you just suggested for me, and we’re even!” _

_ “Ahhh, hahahahaha!” he cackled back. “You’re funny, kid! You already released me, all on your own! I owe you  _ nothing! _ In fact, unless we do a deal, right here, right now, I think I’ll just DESTROY YOU!!!” as the immense, red version of himself formed at the end of his statement, then just as quickly snapped back to normal.  _

_ A chill ran down my spine. I had no leverage. Bill knew exactly what I wanted, and he knew just how much I wanted it. And he could demand whatever he desired from me in return. He held all the cards. _

_ “So, what do you think I’m going to ask? Hmm? Take a wild guess!” he taunted. _

_ A feeling of dread filled me. “You want … my soul?” I stammered. _

_ Bill waved his cane. “Pfft! That’s not even enough for a down payment on  _ your _ mortgaged future! Man, you humans really overvalue your pitiful excuse for a consciousness!” Bill squinted. “No, I need  _ much _ more than the ability to torment your essence for eternity!” _

_ The night was deadly silent as he contemplated his price for my desire. My breathing sounded like a hurricane in my ears. My heartbeat pounded so loudly I thought I’d go deaf. _

_ Finally, Bill spoke. “You know what? My plans for this place have just changed! You’ve offered up a new opportunity for me. What I can accomplish here, with a real live  _ willing  _ human to assist me … “ he twirled his cane in delight as his “body” shook with elation, “it’s almost more than I ever hoped!” He paused again, and I knew it was just for evil, dramatic effect. _

_ “You want to know what my price is, Pine Tree?” _

_ I didn’t answer his stupid rhetorical question. But he just had to drive home who was really in control! “Pine Tree! I’m sorry? Maybe you weren’t listening!” he said condescendingly as he stretched out an arm and snapped his finger in front of my face. “Do … you ... want ... to … know … what ...” _

_ “ _ Yes _ , asshole!” I shouted, shaking in rage, but powerless. “What’s your price?” _

_ He glided right up to my nose, filling my entire field of vision. _

_ “ANYTHING! And EVERYTHING! You will  _ serve _ me! You will be my  _ slave!  _ I will tell you to do things that you don’t want to do, and you’ll  _ do _ them! I will tell you to do these things over .. and  _ over _ … and  _ OVER AGAIN! _ And you’ll  _ DO THEM _!! Without  _ question _ , and without  _ fail _!” _

_ I shook with the enormity of his demands. “What ... what kinds of things?” I stammered. _

_ “Things your pathetic hormone-infested brain hasn’t yet even imagined,” Bill sneered. “Things your worthless morality will crumble to comprehend!” He floated back away, giving me some distance. “Think it over quick, kid. I don’t have all night!” _

_ Was it worth it? Could I sacrifice myself to this unknown hell? What could he possibly ask me to do? What would I do for this love? For Mabel? _

_ Mabel!! _

_ I looked at Bill squarely. “Mabel is  _ off limits _ , Bill!” I demanded. “If I agree, you will do  _ nothing  _ to harm her in any way! Ever! And you will  _ never  _ ask me to do anything to harm her! Do you understand?” I demanded furiously. _

_ “Fine! Agreed! No problem! In fact, I'll personally  _ guarantee _ her safety. But only as long as you live up to your end of the deal!” Another dramatic pause. I knew what was next. Damn him to hell! “Because your precious Shooting Star will occupy the very  _ first _ spot in my oh-so-gentle heart if you  _ ever  _ disobey me! Remember that!” _

_ I was trembling, terrified, but insanely, I still felt euphoric. If I did this, Mabel and I can be together! We can be in love, be in a relationship, know what it’s like to be happy together! We can live a life like we wanted to live, that … _

_ Wait, I realized with dread. Bill wants a willing human. A  _ live _ willing human. Bill wasn’t offering me a lifetime together with Mabel. I was going to have to  _ leave _ Mabel! There was an expiry date with this deal! I slumped with the realization. _

_ The equilateral entity snickered. “You got it, squirt!” I looked at him in hatred. “You’re not going to be a very good minion for me if you’re still gazing into her eyes, those big brown eyes, like you’re her puppy dog.” My fists clenched in impotent fury. “Plus, I can only wait so long before I collect my debt." _

_ I figured he would want me for, what, half of what’s left of my life? If I live another seventy years, that’d give Mabel and I until we’re … maybe fifty? Even Mom and Dad aren’t even close to fifty yet! That's a lot of time! We can live a lot, do a lot of things together … _

_ Bill continued. “So you can go be with your, um … “girlfriend” … and have fun! Then I’ll see you again when my end of the bargain is complete, and you and I can start having  _ my _ brand of fun!“ He counted off several long slender fingers, making a show of counting. “In your perception of time, that’ll be … next July!” _

_ “Wait,  _ WHAT?!?”  _ I cried in shock. “You’re saying I only get … like, six  _ months _ to be free with Mabel?” _

_ “Hey, my time’s valuable! I’m going to be watching you two constantly! Spinning reality inside the heads of dozens of people simultaneously in your sad little meat space. What was it one of your great philosophers said? ‘When you’re good at something, never do it for free.’ Hahaha! Wise words! That guy laughed a lot too!" _

_ I was immobilized with the injustice of it all, that this despicable piece of shit held such power over me. _

_ “That’s my offer, kid! What d’ya say?” He held out a flaming blue hand. _

_ With my last shred of defiance, I threw out a counteroffer. “Just a few years!” I shouted desperately, as Bill’s hand retracted. “Give us just ... just  _ four _ more summers! I mean … give us high school! Give us … until the end of summer when we turn eighteen! We ... we need more time together! We  _ deserve _ more time together! …  _ Mabel _ … M ... Mabel ..." I fought to keep my chest still, as a violent shudder tried to escape, "God dammit! God  _ DAMN it,  _ Bill! Mabel deserves  _ more! _ She … she deserves  _ so  _ much MORE!!” I stared at Bill’s unblinking eye, imploring, as the cold skin on my cheeks stung from hot tears. “Please ... Bill ... I’ll  _ never  _ ask anything else from you, ever again!” I thrust my hand out towards him. “ _ Please!  _ I  _ beg _ you!” I sobbed, meaning every word. _

_ Bill was motionless for a moment. I truly believe that he thought he felt sorry for me.  _

_ “ _ PLEASE!!!”  _ I screamed at him. _

_ Then his hand leapt forward and took mine. The blue flame danced over our joined hands. _

_ “Deal!” he exclaimed happily. _

* * *

Dipper paced up and down the aisle of the bus, muttering to himself. He needn't have been quiet: it wasn't like anyone on the bus was able to see or hear him. 

He hadn't really allowed himself to examine the wisdom of his choice this past week. What was done was done: the choice had been made. And he'd had no desire to look back. The deal had lifted the weight from Dipper's shoulders. He revelled in not worrying any longer. He had been free, for a whole wonderful week, to love Mabel the way she so deserved to be loved. 

But now? Dipper would be irresponsible to not use this opportunity to consider what he'd done. He had sold his soul, for starters! He didn't know what Bill actually had in mind for his version of eternal damnation, although he sure was certain it wouldn’t be pleasant. 

But Dipper’s self-valuation was low. He’d been through so much over the last several months, he honestly didn’t care about himself, or his cosmic fate, at that moment. He didn’t view himself as a significant value in the equation.

However, Bill had mentioned things that Dipper would have to do. Things that it was broadly hinted at that would be horrific to do. How terrifying could it be? Would it involve … hurting people? Torturing people? Killing people? Something even worse? Could he do that? Could he be the instrument for any monstrous plan Bill could come up with?

Well, at the moment, he had no choice. Bill had threatened Mabel. If Dipper didn’t follow Bill’s orders, Mabel would pay. That  _ wasn’t _ going to happen!

But what if Dipper cancelled the deal, as Bill was now offering? He and Mabel would have to try to continue as they had since September. It was a prospect he didn’t relish. But they were just two people, and Bill had granted them less than four years together: was that worth what Bill might conjure up? Was a few years of happiness for two young teenagers worth what could be unimaginable tribulation? 

The math didn’t work out. Of  _ course _ the two of them were not worth that! Any logical, sane person could see that. There was no way he could possibly justify this emotional, selfish deal, and Bill had offered the chance to cancel it. It was obvious what he should do!

He headed back to the rear of the bus to wait for Bill to come back.

* * *

Dipper had sat in one of the empty seats, directly in front of Mabel and his own body. He was relaxed, having no doubt about his course of action. He glanced at his watch, and figured Bill should be reappearing right … about … now!

Sure enough, Bill winked into existence, though without any fanfare: no flash of light or sound of any kind. He simply appeared. He was comfortably propped up against the back of the seat next to Dipper, his slender arms extended behind the “head” of his triangular body, his spindly legs crossed in front of him 

“So, Pine Tree, you’ve thought about my offer?” Bill asked calmly. He seemed to not have a care in the world.

“Yeah,” sighed Dipper, gaze fixed ahead and refusing to look at the demon. “I think you already know what I’ve decided.”

Bill was waiting with the serenity of Buddha. "Why don't you tell me, anyways?"

Dipper drew a breath, and let it out. 

"We still have a deal," he said quietly. 

If it was possible for a mouthless triangle to smirk, Bill Cipher accomplished it. "I never had a doubt, Pine Tree!" Bill proclaimed, his voice dripping with smug superiority. “The things you idiot humans do for love! I tell you that you can’t even  _ imagine _ the horror you’re going to witness, or what I’ll demand you inflict on your worthless species! All for a few years of making sure no one knows you’re exchanging your excess bodily fluids with your sister! What a  _ deal! _ ”

A flinch of powerless frustration was the only thing Dipper could do in response. He wished the yellow bastard would just disappear and get on with quietly protecting his and Mabel’s relationship.

“You know,” Bill continued unfazed, “I was  _ barely  _ able to get you to question your feelings about your sister to make the sock puppet deal, and that was when she was just your sibling! And not only did she redeem herself then, since then you’ve also completely fallen in love with her.” Bill floated up beside Dipper’s head, making it impossible to avoid being seen in Dipper’s peripheral vision. “And yet, you don’t trust her. Or yourself! You just can’t risk that either of you won’t make a mistake, so you need  _ me _ to save you! Last week, you agreed to the worst deal in history. And now, with plenty of time to reconsider, you just agreed  _ again! _ ” Bill glided closer, stopping just a hair’s width from Dipper’s cheek. “Face it, Stud!” he taunted. “Because you want nothing more than to get busy with your sister, you’ve sacrificed everything! You’ll do  _ anything _ for her. Am I right?”

Dipper nodded helplessly, still staring forward.

Bill backed away slowly. “Well, I got what I wanted! A whole hour of watching you try to talk yourself out of the worst decision of your life. I  _ knew  _ you couldn’t do it!” He clapped his hands and rubbed them together, whipping up a quick blue fireball. “My entertainment for the day is done! Thanks, kid! That was a gas!" 

Dipper finally looked over, pure hate in his expression, but Bill completely ignored it.  "You probably won’t see me again until 2017, and by then there’ll be  _ lots  _ to catch up on! But in the meantime, I’ll see  _ plenty _ of you two!” He cackled in evil glee, then glided up to the front of the bus, the glow from his body increasing severely in brightness. “Remember,” he called out with delight, “I’ll be waaaat-ching yoooooouuuuu !!!”

With a searing flash of light and one last peal of obnoxious laughter, Dipper's arch enemy was gone. Disoriented, the teenager found himself returned to the back seat, and the dark interior of the bus was once again seen to be in color. He jerked in surprise, his actual body responding as it normally would. 

Mabel groaned, awakened by Dipper's movement. "Dipper?" she mumbled, looking up into his face. He looked down to her, their noses barely an inch apart. "You okay?" she asked drowsily. 

Dipper's heart was just slowing down from the brief jolt of surprise. Now as he peered into Mabel's beautiful dark eyes, he felt his heart leap again. 

His mouth parted into a small, dreamy smile. 

"I am now," he whispered in reply, then leaned down to tenderly kiss his sister's lips, his eyes closing in contented bliss.

As she lovingly kissed him back and his arms tightened around her body, Dipper knew, beyond any doubt, he couldn't have made any other choice. Was it the right one? He resolved it would be a few years before he'd even start  _ thinking _ about finding out.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did you expect? That I’d actually give you a genuine happy ending?
> 
> I am (in an admittedly evil way) very happy with this installment, and how all the “good” things that happened in the final couple of chapters got turned completely on their heads. If Mabel discovers the truth, that Dipper’s speech about belief was bullshit, that he knew Bill was the one “watching over them”, and that his faith is a sham, it will crush her. But Dipper really did do everything he did for Mabel, and for a chance at happiness together, something he did not believe was possible any other way.
> 
> My hope is that dropping Bill Cipher into this story now was as unexpected as possible for the reader, given how ultra-“realistic” I’ve been throughout both of the stories I’ve written. I’ve been intentionally ignoring anything that couldn’t plausibly happen in real life, and I’ve even put a lot of effort into ensuring that the details of Portland and Piedmont are as authentic as I could. I wanted Bill’s appearance to be a surprising shock.
> 
> However, please remember that this epilogue is “unofficial”. I will not be acknowledging any of the events or consequences of actions that take place in this epilogue as I continue the “Fistbump AU”. You can safely erase this entire chapter from your brain! No Bill Cipher, the “Bible” actually was a Bible, Dipper’s faith is genuine, and his willingness to risk for Mabel is real. The Fistbump AU will continue to be “realistic”, and for the most part, it will be set in a world very much like most Pinecest stories (their adventures growing up as teenagers, happy (but nervous) in private, coping in public. But I also have a few ideas for a longer stories in this timeline, as well. I’m hoping for a mix of sweetness and angst, of brightness and sadness, in this series.
> 
> But for those of you who like the twist of this epilogue, I have good news for you, as well. I have privately endorsed one of my friends in this fandom to continue the alternative “special” ending into new stories. This writer is particularly adept at understanding Bill, and in imagining how unbelievably hurt and angry Mabel would be at Dipper would be if she finds out about how he lied to and deceived her over the deal with Bill. It will be great! I'll let everyone know when this splinter-AU becomes reality.
> 
> So there you are! I think that this will be a satisfying way for the story to move forward, and hopefully everyone who has enjoyed this fic up until now will be able to continue to do so, regardless of their preferences.
> 
> E-o-F


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